Initiatives – Smartpork

Smartpork

With the initiative Smartpork – started in January 2016 – EQAsce aims to support research and development activities, which facilitate innovative IKT-based services and support European technology providers with global market development. Along with user groups initially from meat industry and European research facilities prototypical industry solutions will be developed.

Motivation

Companies of the European meat industry are facing the challenge to assert their competitive posi­tion in an international context.

There are basically four requirements to identify, to inter­pret and to implement:

1. 1. Continuous improvement of transparency and trust in current customer-supplier relationships within the scope of the “Initiative Animal Welfare”
   2. To be prepared for unannounced audits within the scope of IFS compliance audits (International Food Standard)
   3. To take advantage of the EU-research funding following the farm-to-fork-approach
   4. Systematic risk assessment at the implementation of new identification, traceability, and verification systems from a technical and organizational point of view.

That is why the industry has provided impetus for a col­laborative nationwide initiative. “Smartpork” represents an industry-specific platform whereby “Pork” stands for Production-accompanying Organization of Animal Welfare and Health Cooperation along the entire meat value chain. The term “Smart” in the other hand can be considered as an implementation of identification, traceability and verifi­cation systems into the world of international fast informa­tion and communication systems as well as of knowledge-intensive services. The cross-sectional task of the common initiative Smart­pork is financed by companies from four or five different pilot value chains.

 

Objective and Structure

The significant new requirements for the value chains in the meat industry consist of a strict process orientation and a risk-based approach, as well as of performance assess­ments of processes and joint investments with a view to customer wishes. How are these requirements of stan­dards, norms and customers to interpret and implement concretely? What strategies should the companies choose to improve their current processes? Companies and research institutes should join at the platform “Smartpork” to find answers to these questions. The objective is to empower the participating companies with notified results and make them adjust their current quality management systems to improve their effectiveness and fulfill the requirements.

 

In this context five activities are put in focus:

1. 1. Create a roadmap to implement system innovations in terms of coordinated industry solution.
   2. Creation of synergy effects between simultaneous deve­lopment projects within different pilot value chains.
   3. Neutral assessment of cost and benefit of technical solutions to improve the animal welfare performances of all responsible persons in the entire value chain.
   4. Improvement and acceleration of the common know­ledge building.
   5. Improvement of the cooperation between universities and companies.

 

The development of the platform “Smartpork” is achieved by:

• • The merger of companies and research institutes accor­ding to the four industry challenges.
  • Regular workshops of the platform whereby the topics are defined and compiled by companies and research institutes together.
  • EQAsce in cooperation with Quantum Quality GmbH prepares the mee­tings and assures the quality and topicality of the work results.

 

Benefits for the participating companies

• • Be aware of what requirements your company will be confronted with in the future.
  • Ask us your questions about technical and organizatio­nal innovations and get reliable answers and tips for the practical implementation.
  • Benefit from the profound recommendations for an efficient and effective adaptation of the requirements to your quality management system.
  • Learn modern and scientific approaches to optimize your processes.
  • Exchange experiences with other companies from the same sector or from other value chains.
  • Collect Best Practices and reduce the implementation costs.

SME = Enterprises with 250 employees or less.

FURTHER INITIATIVES:  QVIREA  |  PPP Animal Welfare