Why flowcharts matter in Quality Control for plant materials and extracts/plant natural products

Why flowcharts matter in Quality Control for plant materials and extracts/plant natural products (second post on QC)

This is a small example of part of a flowchart I built for quality control of plant raw materials and extracts. This is normally how I start once I start working for a factory/company, even for agrifood companies this is important, I believe.

In QC, flowcharts are not just visual tools, they are where the process becomes controlled and transparent. (You can see in this example, the upper line is the path for accepted material, the bottom line for material that was rejected).

They allow us to identify:
- Critical control points
- Acceptance and rejection criteria before laboratory processing
- What happens when a raw material is rejected (or accepted) and why
- Which area or pathway the material is redirected to
- Whether the material can be:
corrected to become conform
redirected for another product
or fully disposed.

Flowcharts also force us to define:
- How materials are tagged (conform vs non-conform)
- What internal pre-analyses are required before transformation
- Which steps are mandatory before a raw material can move forward into transformation to the final product or extract, for example

Additionally, I believe all of this logic must be translated into structured tracking systems, usually a spreadsheet and/or software database, where we define:
- Batch naming rules
- Codes based on production date, origin, plant species, plant part, and processing stage
among other details.

Also, for rejected products that can still be brought back into conformity, correct identification is also important.
These materials must be:
- Clearly tagged in the system with their status and the description of the required corrective action
- Also, physically labelled on the container itself (that has the plant material, oil, extract)
- Organised in a way that avoids mix-ups and preserves traceability at all times

Digital traceability alone is not enough, the physical container must reflect the same information, in an ordered and standardised manner.

I hope you found this information interesting and I'm really eager to learn how you do in your own work environment.