Server: Microsoft-IIS/3.0 Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 06:13:06 GMT Content-Type: text/html Accept-Ranges: bytes Last-Modified: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 21:15:37 GMT Content-Length: 7512 Quality Assurance

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Quality Assurance

We take steps at every level to make sure each product that leaves a Tyson plant meets customers' expectations.

Vertical integration gives us control over every facet of our production process. We own our breeding flock. We operate our own hatcheries. We work closely with independent contract growers. We make our own feed. And, of course, we manage our own processing plants and storage facilities.

On the growout farm, the soil is tested for residues before a chicken house is even built. The water is also examined for safety, as well as quality, concerns.

We test the raw grain coming into our feed mills, sampling every batch to assure its quality.

And in the end, we test every flock of birds before transport to our production facilities to detect traces of any unwanted substance in the chickens.

Measuring BreadingIn production, our quality assurance efforts continue in each of our processing plants across the country. Trained QA technicians use many tools at their disposal in this frontline effort. In fact, we require a bachelor's degree in a technical field as a minimum qualification for a Quality Assurance management position.

The Q.A. Department in each plant is charged with overseeing the development and maintenance of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system, or "HACCP." The HACCP concept covers all types of potential food safety hazards: biological, physical, and chemical, whether they are naturally occurring in the food, contributed by the environment, or generated by a flaw in the manufacturing process.

The QA people in our plants monitor every aspect of producing a product, from beginning to end.

The QA group helps establish, maintain, and evaluate product and process specifications. They are responsible for preparing and distributing routine quality reports, quality improvement reports, process capability evaluations, government records, and customer information.

In addition, QA representatives perform audits to evaluate all phases of the quality control system, including sanitation, product performance, housekeeping, and quality training.

In further processing, our quality assurance efforts continue. After each cleanup shift, we run tests at the microbiological level to verify cleanliness. We develop sanitation procedures for our plant Team Members to follow. Our technicians check product formulation and adjust recipes within working parameters. And they have the authority to restrict shipment of any product not meeting specifications.

We use many ingredients in our manufacturing process that we don't make ourselves, but even those ingredients must pass the test. We have a vendor certification program to ensure the companies who have us as customers measure up to our standards of quality.

Plant Q.A. is supported by a highly-trained, experienced corporate staff. This team provides technical support to both our customers and our production facilities. Consistency is the key. All plant Q.A. managers work directly with one of these quality experts. We have numerous plants, but the goal is to provide and implement the same quality programs in every plant.

We have two USDA-certified corporate laboratories that act as support facilities for our plant labs.

All of this so the final product will come out the way our customers expect.

We are currently implementing a sophisticated computerized system of inventory tracking. Our product date code system not only tells us the plant where a product is produced, but the line and the time of day.

After our products leave our hands, our quality assurance efforts continue. At our Corporate Headquarters, our consumer response team fields calls and letters from our customers on every level to gain important feedback, which returns to our plant quality assurance and production folks and is used to improve our production processes.