Towards a conceptual roadmap for Statistical Process Control implementation in the food industry

•Critical limitations of existing SPC implementation frameworks.•Development of a five-phase SPC deployment roadmap for the food industry.•Guidelines to execute SPC pilot project in the food companies.•Identified critical factors for successful SPC implementation in the food industry.•Sustainability is the most challenging phase of SPC implementation.

Statistical process control (SPC) is one of the most highly used quality control techniques in the industry. The lack of specific implementation guidelines makes it the least applied quality control technique in the food industry. This paper presents a five-phase SPC implementation conceptual roadmap in the food industry developed based on a critical review on current literature of various SPC deployment methods. It considers six critical factors for the SPC implementation in the food industry. This paper makes unique contributions by presenting a systematic approach for the managers of this industry to successfully deploy SPC in their organisations.