A process diagram is a flow chart of how a product is made or how a site operates — the document an auditor expects to see alongside your food safety plan. QTRACA holds it as a diagram you draw and maintain in the system, rather than a drawing kept somewhere else that quietly goes out of date.
Where to find it: Process Diagrams in the main menu.
Creating one
- Go to Process Diagrams and create a new diagram.
- Give it a Name and a Description.
- Choose the Process Type — see below.
- If it is a product process, choose the Product it belongs to.
- Save, then open the diagram to draw it.
Site or product?
| Process Type | Use for |
|---|---|
| Site | A process covering the site as a whole — goods in, storage, dispatch, cleaning. Not tied to one product. |
| Product | The manufacturing flow for a particular product, from ingredients through to packing. Attached to that product. |
The distinction matters for how the diagram is found later: a product diagram belongs to its product, a site diagram stands alone.
Drawing the diagram
The editor gives you a canvas and a palette. Drag shapes onto the canvas and join them with connectors.
| Palette | Contains |
|---|---|
| Flow Shapes | Process for a step, and Decision for a branch. |
| Connectors | Arrowed lines joining one step to the next. |
Two shapes is deliberate rather than limiting: a process flow is a sequence of steps and the decisions between them, and a diagram drawn from a small vocabulary stays readable to an auditor who has never seen your site.
Exporting to PDF
A diagram can be produced as a PDF for your food safety documentation, an audit pack, or to send to someone outside the system.
Things to know
- The diagram is stored with the record, so it opens as you left it and can be edited whenever the process changes.
- A product can have its own diagram, which is usually clearer than one diagram trying to cover every product on the site.
- Keep it current. A process diagram that no longer matches the line is worse than none, because it is evidence of a control you are not operating.