10,000 food‑safety audits a year, scheduled automatically
A North American certification body now schedules all of its 10,000 food-safety audits a year automatically.
Test it on your dataA North American food-safety certification body schedules about 10,000 audits a year automatically with ScheduleAI. Internal auditor utilisation rose from 51% to 80%, travel distance fell by 28.2%, and rotation, window, duration and competence rules were met for every audit.
Key takeaways
- About 10,000 food-safety audits a year across the USA and Canada are now scheduled automatically, with a planner approving each one.
- Internal auditor utilisation rose from 51% to 80%.
- Travel distance fell by 28.2%, on a network where a single trip can mean a long flight.
- Impartiality rotation was respected for 100% of audits, and every audit window, duration and competence rule was met.
- Processing took 2.1 seconds per audit on average, with every rule checked.
The challenge
A food-safety certification body delivers about 10,000 audits a year for food manufacturers across the USA and Canada. Sites are far apart, so a poor allocation costs long drives and flights, not just a few extra kilometres.
Every audit has to land inside its certificate window, with an auditor approved for the scheme and food category, and without breaking the rotation limits that protect impartiality. Planners were doing this by hand, which left internal auditors under-used while others travelled long distances.
Internal auditors, fully used
ScheduleAI fills qualified internal auditors first and groups nearby sites into trips, so the same team delivers far more of the programme.
Every rule, every audit
Rules are hard gates: no audit is proposed outside its window, at the wrong duration or with an auditor who lacks the approval. In the measured period every audit found a compliant slot, so none was held back for a planner to resolve, and a planner still approved each one.
Less travel across two countries
Clustering audits by region and window cut total travel distance for the same set of audits by 28.2%. Fewer long trips mean lower travel costs, more time on audits and lower Scope 3 emissions.
What planners still do
Approve
Every proposed audit is approved by a planner before it is confirmed.
Decide the exceptions
Anything the engine cannot place inside the rules is held back with the reason, for a planner to decide.
Own the client relationship
Planners keep the calls that need judgement, such as a site that has changed its production season.
Set the rules
Scheme windows, rotation limits and preferences are agreed with the team and changed only by them.
Status of the results
These results come from the customer's own production data. The customer is not named.
What this means for your body
Scheme rules
BRCGS, FSSC 22000, IFS and SQF windows and rotation limits are held as rules, not remembered.
Utilisation
Using qualified internal auditors first raises utilisation and reduces subcontracted days.
Travel
Grouping sites into trips cuts kilometres, flights and hotel nights.
Planner time
Planners approve proposals instead of building the plan by hand.
See how ScheduleAI plans GFSI audits and how to test it on your own data.
Check these results on your own data
- ✓Share an extract of auditors, scheme and category approvals, and one or two months of audits.
- ✓Agree success criteria: share scheduled automatically, utilisation, travel distance and rule compliance.
- ✓Compare the engine's plan with your real plan, audit by audit.
- ✓Decide on a pilot only if the numbers hold.
For certification bodies, audit scheduling software that checks competence, rotation and windows on every audit takes most of this work off the planning team.
Run a month of your own food-safety audits through ScheduleAI and compare it with your current plan, audit by audit.
Book a demo Estimate your savingsQuestions
Which schemes does this cover?
GFSI-benchmarked food-safety schemes. ScheduleAI holds BRCGS, FSSC 22000, IFS and SQF windows, approvals and rotation limits as rules.
How was utilisation measured?
As internal audit days divided by the days internal auditors were available, on the customer's own production data, before and with ScheduleAI.
Did planners lose control?
No. Every audit was scheduled automatically and then approved by a planner.
Can we see similar results?
Yes. The Control Union case study shows 90% of a year of audits allocated in two minutes, and a free two-week custom demo on your own data shows what is achievable for your programme.