The International Organization for Standards (ISO) have recently developed a new standard for managing chain of custody, reducing risks and loss of time, as well as addressing conditions in production. ISO 22095 – ‘Chain of Custody – General Terminology and Models’, will aim to provide a common ground across business types and sectors for organisations to work from.
The new international standard not only allows users to reduce their costs but ensures product integrity and quality. This is effectively done through tackling certain issues in the wide variety of chain of custody systems, that are prevalent today. Many organisations with digital inspection solutions can therefore be prepared to take advantage of simplified language and better management across their relevant supply chains. Because of the broad nature of ISO 22095, the standard truly represents an industry guideline which can affect almost any organisation.
For adopters of ISO 22095, the standard will initially clarify issues such as raw material quality, food safety or product sustainability, falling in line with other ISO frameworks that help to shape many international workplace and business standards. By merging the ISO 22095 standard with in-house chain of custody systems, it will be possible for organisations to see how different they may be working to industry average operations, but also save time in avoiding starting a chain of custody system from scratch. This is something that can be done with digital inspection platforms with ISO 22095 checklists integrated into the inspection reports. By giving personnel the various points of such a standard checklist, but also giving them necessary reference material from the ISO 22095 standard, organisations can accurately measure the chain of custody setup for an initial look and continuous monitoring. Digital inspection platforms also let inspection personnel carry out a multitude of other inspection, audit and quality assurance checks; depending on the business type. This gives a possibility to also include other ISO standards such as 45001 or 9001, which may have overriding values that ISO 22095 requires/complements. A benefit for inspection personnel using digital applications is that the paperless nature means that they can be updated rapidly. If an update is issues from ISO or an industry regulator that is in line with ISO 22095 or another standard, the update can be pushed through the organisation much quicker than with normal paper inspection systems. Besides not losing as much time, this can reduce safety risks, machinery faults, organisational costs and many other important factors.
