Researchers at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers have developed a new software-based methodology to help ensure the safety of packaging throughout the supply chain.
The Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) methodology identifies the substances, materials and steps that are important for the safety of packaging systems used in food contact and related applications.
The researchers noted that the methodology was aimed at providing end users numerical tools that require inputs and knowledge, by providing expert skills, rather than replacing human reasoning.
Outputs are available to the user as HTML documents with figures, graphs, FMECA analysis either in PNG or PDF format, reports FoodProductiondaily.com.
The methodology has been developed as an open-source project and it promotes the sharing of databases, numerical tools, inference engines, rule bases and case study templates. It extends the existing modeling researches to packaging systems by combining multi-component and flowchart considerations within a single and expandable quantitative FMECA methodology.
The aim of the proposed FMECA methodology is to evaluate the effect of migration upon the food contamination and rank them based on the threshold of concern. It offers a preventive approach of safe-by-design, instead of safe-by-tested method.
