Quality Assurance Lead - Agriculture/Seed

POSITION: Seed Quality Assurance Lead

LOCATION: Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Delhi NCR

REPORTING TO: Country Head -India

CTC: 40-47 LPA

HEAD OFFICE: Gurgaon

Experience: 15 years plus

INDUSTRY: Agriculture

Company: An MNC, Well established for 30 + years organisation with high reputation.

Job Summary:

To take responsibility for the QMS system(ISO) for PAN India. To plan, support and execute various Quality projects.

Job responsibilities:

1.Documentation:

I. Documentation of quality process to create new ISO standard.

II. Review (or create) market specification documents, that includes germination standards (viability and vigor), genetic purity standards, physical purity standards and packaging and labelling standards. For export markets it could also include phytosanitary requirements and seed treatment requirements. These standards could in theory vary by product or market but we must set expectations by category - OPV, RV, Hybrid.

2. Quality Testing:

I. Act as the focal point with the states on quality testing and labelling transactions.

II. Review and create standard work-orders for tollers that instruct expectations for cleaning, treating and packaging. Review and standardize the in-process sampling and testing in our toller conditioning (cleaning) systems (where, how often, what test, what method, acceptable outcomes).

III. Review and standardize the sample storage program and tracking. Create standard records tracking conditioning and samples.

V. Employ the Faxitron technology and use the output to specify seed conditioning expectations by run. Validate the output of the conditioning program with the Faxitron

VI. Validate our germination and purity testing programs. Specifically create an understanding

of the correlation of our current programs to field outcomes. Timing of tests is a key question.

- Recommend new testing routines as warranted.

3. Reviewing Operations:

I. Review seed field operations for key QA criteria such as product tracking, field identification, field isolation, field observations, weed control, other IPM and record keeping.

II. Review harvest operations for specifications on timing (moisture, maturity), segregation of male, segregation of suspect fields, tracking, drying procedures, moisture testing, blending and storage.

- Review the bulk seed characterization processes and the resulting blending and conditioning processes. Review returns and carryover operations including segregation, sampling, storage, blending, final sampling, labeling, market placement.

4. Address and track Quality Complaints:

- Assure we have an effective customer complaint system that records and responds to all field complaints. Track the cost of resolution. Assure we have a system to capture internal quality failures and track them to resolution. Track the cost of resolution.

5. Risk Mitigation

I. Assure there is a corrective action program that documents and implement new procedures that mitigates the issues that caused internal and external failures.

6. Improvise and create SOP's:

- Create standard operating procedures and work instructions that reflect all these standards - this will become key to the QMS and allow auditing.

7.People Management:

- Form and lead a product utilization team that meets weekly during the seed conditioning season. This team should review the conditioning schedules and work orders, progress against these schedules and make real-time adjustments. This team should also make utilization decisions on all products/lots not meeting the normal market specifications. The team will agree on specification variances and any needed adjustments to labeling and communication.

8.Future opportunities:

I. Key projects for implementation.

II. Using driers to enhance quality.

III. Using different fungicide or other seed treatments to enhance emergence and vigor.

IV. Using fungicides during seed field production to improve seed vigor and appearance.

VI. Creating standardized, by product, instructions on priming, nursery planting, transplanting timing, paddy seeding rates.

VII. Review other opportunities to improve appearance of the seed - polymers, colorants, oil, additional aspiration

VIII. Begin to benchmark our quality against key competitors - germination, purity, packaging, appearance.