Food Chain Information

From 1 January 2008 under new EU farm to fork hygiene legislation pig producers are classified as food producers and with the reclassification a whole new tranche of paperwork (the Food Information Chain or FCI) needs to be completed when a batch of pigs are sent to an abattoir.

In spring 2007 BPEX (with funding from the Food Standards Agency) contracted everysite to deliver a trial electronic solution (using the CASI system) for submitting food chain information. The FCI trial service operated from August to December 2007. Following very successful results and positive feedback from the industry, BPEX extended the trial to offer a national service from the 1st of January 2008.

The idea behind the FCI system was to use information held in assurance scheme databases and other available industry information to reduce the amount of data producers have to enter with each consignment. Registered FCI producers have access to pre-populated information fields about their business including vet details, production information and their current status in the ZNCP salmonella scheme. The system also provides serveral directories to speed up the filling in of consignment information such as abattoir addresses and pig medicines with withdrawal periods. This greatly reduces the time a producer needs to spend completing this legally required information.

The completed BPEX Food Chain Information system has three main components which everysite developed for BPEX using CASI technology.

• A website available at www.bpex-fci.org.uk for the delivery of the FCI services to producers and abattoirs 
• The BPEX administration and management system
• Scheduled email alerts and data distribution systems. These include links to and from the MHS to provide FCI and CCIR information

The functional elements of each component along with the required roles and personas are described below:

Services website at www.bpex-fci.org.uk

The FCI website provides an access portal to the following services:

• Public information about the FCI trial
• Login facilities and forgotten password service
• Registration forms for abattoirs and producers – the producer registration form automatically links a user account to their BPEX core producer record based on provision of details. Where the information doesn’t match, notification is given to the BPEX administration team

Administrators
In addition to the public services (once authenticated) administrators have access to the following services:

• BPEX Administration System
• Daily Batch Script
• Audit Panel Preview of the MHS CCIR (carcass condemnation information receipt) feedback scope
• A download of the full FCI scope (212) which includes the producer information to be sent to the abattoir and the later attached CCIR information provided by the MHS.

Producers
Registered users who are contacts for production sites can access the following services:

• Apply to add additional production sites to their account:
  • This service uses the same registration form as used for new applicants. This service doesn’t require authenticated users to supply personal details, as this data already exists on our system. Where a user applies for access to a producer which has multiple registered sites, individual applications are automatically generated for all of the producers’ sites and they can be approved or declined on a batch or individual basis. This allows producers to nominate FCI contacts down to a site level.
• Edit the production site details for any of their sites.
  • When a production site is added to an FCI account for the first time the site's production details must be reviewed and confirmed by the users. Once the users have successfully completed all of the required information, they do not need to enter or review this at batch level. They will only need to use this service if the site details change.
• Send a new consignment from any of their sites 
  • If a producer is a contact for multiple sites they must first select which site they wish to send their consignment from. Once it is selected they can then send the consignment.
• To quickly complete batch specific information
  • The consignment form includes all of the site's pre-configured production details and allows the user to quickly complete batch specific information. Consignments must be completed in full and a registered abattoir selected. Where an consignment is completed on the day of delivery or the abattoir has only registered fax details, the user will be asked to print and fax the information.
• Review all batches sent from a selected site; saved, pending, sent, completed and cancelled.
  • Saved and Pending batches can be deleted by clicking the “dustbin” icon next to their entry in the list.
• Access their online ZNCP services
  • View the ZNCP report about any of their production sites

Abattoirs
Authenticated users who are a contact for an abattoir also have access to the following services:

• Apply to add an additional abattoir to their service
  • Takes the abattoir to the service contact form as abattoir registrations are handled by the BPEX staff in the administration system
• Lists consignments
  • An internal page listing of all of the new and historical consignments sent to the abattoir. Once a consignment is selected the abattoir can print off a PDF of any FCI or CCIR information.
• Provides feedback
  • Newly submitted consignments offers the abattoir the facility to provide feedback to the producer (via email). The abattoir can confirm reception of the consignment as well as the size and any injuries.
• Build a ZNCP sample sheet
  • Choose to attach ZNCP (ZAP) sample sheets to their daily FCI emails. If selected, the daily script will build a ZNCP sample sheet for any sites sending pigs for slaughter via the FCI system.

Summary Services for Authenticated Producers and Abattoir contacts
All authenticated users have access to a “Your Details” link from the global site navigation and also the internal FCI left hand service list. The page provides a form to update contact details, change your password and also select the report summary options for any relevant producer or FBO information.

• Report summaries for FBO users (abattoir contacts) – the user can opt to receive daily, weekly or monthly summaries of all of the MHS CCIR information received during a selected period. The CCIRs are sent as a single PDF with an optional CSV version of the carcass information (if requested). The report covers all of their consignments sent with feedback to their abattoir.
• Report summaries for producers – the user can opt to receive summary CCIR documents from the system instead of live information as the MHS submits it. If selected a scheduled daily, weekly or monthly email, which contains a summary of all of their consignment feedback is sent out  

The BPEX administration and management system

The BPEX administration system provides access to the following FCI tools, services and facilities.

• Administration for users and contacts – provides access to all of the entity accounts on the system. This is used to edit contact details and control access rights and permissions for users and also the managing of abattoirs and their contacts

Abattoir applications generate a user account and application to the BPEX Industry group (this is the same permission group as the new assurance checker services, as all FBOs users have access to both). Once the application is approved the user is linked manually as a contact for the abattoir. They will also need to be set as one of the FCI service contacts. Each abattoir can have up to two FCI contacts which receive daily emails.

Producers – all registered users linked to their CASI records

Applications for producers to access the FCI service generate a group application detail. The application detail links the new user to the group and also the CASI production site. When approved the user is added as a linked CASI contact to the site. The approvals are handled in the Group Enrolment task and send out automatic emails with usernames and passwords for first time applicants or as a simple confirmation email where a user is applying for an additional holding.

Producer Records – access to all the BPEX CASI records.

• View and Edit Members
• Membership Overview 
• Membership Information
• Sites
• Contacts
• Approve Updates
• Certificates
• FCI Consignments

The FCI Information task provides a full list of all of the FCI information belonging to each site. The information is saved as assessments and can be moved between sites in the admin system by using “manipulate items”. This allows any consignments sent from the wrong site to be corrected by the admin team.

FCI Management Reports

The FCI Reports task under the BPEX Management section of the admin service provides access to all of the raw monitoring and service summary information. The headline statistics from these reports have been pulled together in a monthly management report, which can be generated from the CASI scheme reporting system in CASI glue.

• Abattoir Summary - Summary of service by abattoir
• Consignment Download - Download a spreadsheet of all of the consignments
• Geographic Download - Spreadsheet of consignments with Geographic information
• Website Action Times - Time taken for tasks on the FCI website
• Consignment Setup Times - Graph of time taken to setup a consignment
• Producer Service Load Time - Graph of time taken to load the producer services page [server performance indicator]
• Usage Patterns (daily) - Graph of consignments over the day of the month
• Usage Patterns (hourly) - Graph of website usage patterns by time of day
• MHS Responses - Graph of CCIR Responses by time of day
• MHS Response Time - Response time for MHS CCIRs
• Trichinella Summary - Summary of consignments by production system
• Geographic Summary - Consignments by region and production system
• Trichinella Breakdown - Summary of consignments by abattoir and production system
• Geographic Breakdown - Consignments by abattoir, region and production system
• Producer Registrations - Producer Registrations
• Abattoir Registrations - Producer Registrations
• Assured Percentage Sent - Percentage of registered users who have sent consignments
• Non-Assured Percentage Sent - Percentage of non-assured registered users who have sent consignments
• Consignment Map - Geo-spatial distribution of consignments to top 10 abattoirs
• Outdoor Map - Geo-spatial distribution of outdoor producers
• Indoor Map - Geo-spatial distribution of indoor producers 
• Mixed Map - Geo-spatial distribution of mixed producers