The report makes one period's monitoring data comparable and decides what is corrected in the next. FAO's HACCP guidance asks for corrective-action records to be reviewed periodically to spot trends and confirm the actions work (FAO corrective-action guidance); the period report is the record of that review.
The common measure linking one period's data to the next action comes from the cold chain basics.
- Period and scope: dates, site, route, product group, container or vehicle, measuring points.
- Denominator: the number of planned trips or measurements and the number with a timestamped record.
- Missing data: records expected but not found, the reason and who follows up. They stay out of the excursion count and are not evidence of conformity.
- Excursions: every verified excursion, its event number and the action taken; repeats on the same route or point are flagged, with the likely cause and the investigation record.
- Actions from the previous period: status, evidence number, verification date, new owner.
- New actions: owner role, target date, verification method.
- Review and approval: reviewer and approver role, date, comment and any record of disagreement.
Hypothetical example: if 2 of 100 shipments with complete records have at least one excursion, the rate is 2/100 = 2%; if 3 of 300 do in the next period, it is 3/300 = 1%. What is counted is shipments, and a shipment counts once however many readings went out of range. If the scope or the calculation method changed, the two rates are not compared.
Actions from the previous period sit on the first page: closed ones are marked with their evidence, and for open ones the reason and the new target are written. Correcting the temperature brings the process back under control, while the fate of the affected product is assessed and recorded separately, as the FAO guidance says.
Keep preparation, review and approval as separate roles; FAO likewise wants monitoring records reviewed by a designated person with the authority to take corrective action if needed (monitoring guidance). Choose the period from risk and data volume and write the reason into the report. Record sampled shipments on the consignment audit form and tie them to the report by scope and evidence number.