Seed Quality Assurance Lead

WrightRee Staffing Solutions Pvt. Ltd.; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 800,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading staffing solutions firm in India is seeking a Quality Manager to oversee the Quality Management System (QMS) across various quality projects. The role involves documentation of ISO standards, management of quality testing, and addressing operational quality concerns. Ideal candidates will have proven experience in quality management within the agricultural sector as well as strong leadership capabilities. This position contributes significantly to ensuring product quality and compliance in agricultural operations.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in quality management systems (QMS), preferably ISO.
• Strong knowledge of agricultural quality standards and regulatory requirements.

Responsibilities

• Document quality processes and create ISO standards.
• Oversee quality testing and labeling transactions.
• Review seed field and harvest operations for QA criteria.
• Track and address customer quality complaints.
• Develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) for quality management.
• Lead a product utilization team for seed conditioning.

Job description

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

Job responsibilities

1. Documentation

• Documentation of quality process to create new ISO standard.
• 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. We should always consider the legal requirements as a minimum but consider exceeding these requirements if we believe it adds value.

2. Quality Testing

• Act as the focal point with the states on quality testing and labelling transactions.
• 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).
• Review and standardize the final sampling process for our toller locations.
• Review and standardize the sample storage program and tracking. Create standard records tracking conditioning and samples.
• 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 (Purchase at least two machines and hire technicians to run them). The Faxitron operation should be concealed from the tollers. This should be treated as a Trade Secret. Evaluate samples independently and deliver the instructions to the tollers without details on the process.
• 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

• 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.
• 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.

• Assure there is a corrective action program that documents and implements new procedures that mitigates the issues that caused internal and external failures.
• Assure there is a preventative action program where new processes are reviewed to fully anticipate and mitigate known failure modes.

6. Improvise and create SOPs

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. The team will agree on lot blending decisions intended to mitigate specific lot problems. These adjustments may also have pricing implications. CEO should assign the team members but usually this would include production people, quality people, logistics people and maybe someone from sales and marketing.

8. Future opportunities

• Key projects for implementation.
• Using driers to enhance quality.
• Using different fungicide or other seed treatments to enhance emergence and vigor.
• Using fungicides during seed field production to improve seed vigor and appearance.
• Using color sorters to improve appearance and vigor. (Future)
• Creating standardized, by product, instructions on priming, nursery planting, transplanting timing, paddy seeding rates.
• Review other opportunities to improve appearance of the seed – polymers, colorants, oil, additional aspiration
• Begin to benchmark our quality against key competitors – germination, purity, packaging, appearance.
• Determine opportunities to economically use chemical genetic testing as a replacement for grow-out purity testing. This particularly important for dry season hybrids delivered just-in-time to the marketplace.
• NABL & ISTA accreditation for the organization’s seed quality lab.