Practical resources built for food manufacturing engineering
The AFME Resource Library brings together practical templates, tools and working documents designed to support engineers across food and drink manufacturing. Here you will find resources covering maintenance and reliability, engineering audits, asset management, CAPEX and projects, health and safety, food safety and compliance, utilities and energy, automation and controls, engineering management, and people development.
Resources are intended to be practical — documents that can be downloaded, adapted and used in real engineering environments.
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Resource Library
Practical engineering templates, audits, PM tools, maintenance regimes and management documents for food manufacturing.
26 resources
AFME-BRC-ENG-001 Engineering Department Food Safety & BRCGS Compliance Policy
A practical engineering compliance toolkit designed for food manufacturing sites operating within a BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9 environment. The pack provides engineering teams with structured, usable controls for maintenance, temporary repairs, hygienic design, contractor management, utilities, calibration, projects, building fabric and audit readiness. It is intended to help engineering departments demonstrate consistent food-safety controls and provide documented evidence of engineering activities. Which to use: this is the full, joined-up system. The stand-alone FSC-01, FSC-02, FSC-03 and FSC-06 resources are quick versions of forms F12, F01, F02 and F11 for sites that need a single form rather than the whole toolkit.
AFME Asset Management Plan Series AMP-01 to AMP-06
The AFME Asset Management Plan series in plain English: six practical guides that take an engineering team from setting direction to running a reliable, well-recorded maintenance system in a food factory. Written with simple real-life examples, they are also the reference documents for the AFME Asset Management Fundamentals course and are referred to by the BRCGS engineering forms F03, F04, F08 and F09.
AFME CMS-01 Contractor Management Standard & Forms Pack
A practical, editable contractor-management standard and forms set for food-manufacturing sites. It provides a consistent lifecycle for contractor pre-qualification, approval, RAMS planning, food-safety and hygiene controls, permit selection, site-rule acceptance, worksite monitoring, handback, performance review and annual revalidation. Which to use: this is the site-wide standard for all contractors. For contractors on capital projects and installations use PED-06 Contractor and Installation Management alongside it; form F05 in the AFME-BRC-ENG-001 toolkit covers the contractor food-safety assessment.
AFME PED-01 Food Manufacturing Engineering Project Management Toolkit
A complete project-management framework for engineering projects delivered in food-manufacturing environments. It helps project teams control project definition, stage gates, programme, cost, RAID, supplier selection, design review, food-safety and H&S interfaces, installation readiness, FAT/SAT, commissioning, change control, snags, technical handover and benefits realisation.
AFME PED-02 User Requirement Specification (URS) Toolkit for Food Manufacturing Engineering
A comprehensive User Requirement Specification toolkit designed for food-manufacturing engineering projects. It helps sites define what equipment and systems must achieve before procurement, capture food-safety and hygienic-design requirements, manage supplier compliance/deviations and trace requirements through design, FAT, SAT, commissioning and handover.
AFME-AUD-01 Retailer Audit Engineering Walk-Round Checklist
A 30-minute engineering walk-round to prepare for UK retailer technical audits and customer visits, which focus on what is happening on the factory floor. UK retailer technical audits tend to concentrate on what the auditor can see on the factory floor, then test the records behind it. Engineering findings typically come from equipment condition, hygiene of repairs, foreign-body controls and how well the site understands its own failures. This checklist prepares the engineering team for that style of audit. It is a generic tool and does not reproduce any retailer's standard; always check the current requirements and codes of practice of each customer you supply.
AFME-AUT-GDE-001 Understanding Automation in Food Manufacturing
A plain-English guide to planning, buying and running automated equipment safely and legally in UK food factories. It explains how to choose the right job to automate, build an honest business case, meet food safety and hygiene requirements, and comply with UK health and safety law, including the machinery law changes that start on 20 January 2027.
AFME-ELE-ISO-001 12 Steps to Safe Electrical Isolation Lockout, tagout
A practical knowledge sheet on safe electrical isolation for low-voltage work in UK food manufacturing. It explains the 12-step isolation sequence (lockout, tagout and proving dead), why each step matters, and the UK law and guidance behind it: the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, HSE HSG85 and GS38, and BS 7671. Each step is illustrated with a picture, and it covers the traps specific to food factories: separate control supplies, UPS-backed controls, drive DC links and other stored energy.
AFME-EM-01 Engineering Statutory Compliance Calendar
One register of the statutory inspections, examinations and tests a food manufacturing site's engineering team must plan, with a 12-month planner. Missed statutory inspections are a legal, insurance and audit risk, and they are easy to lose track of when responsibilities are split between engineering, facilities, H&S and contractors. This register brings the common items for a UK food site into one place with typical frequencies, so you can assign owners and plan the year.
AFME-EM-02 Engineering Shift Handover Log
A structured handover between engineering shifts, so open isolations, temporary repairs, breakdowns and parts on order are never lost between shifts. Poor handovers are a common factor in incidents and repeated breakdowns: an isolation left in place, a temporary repair nobody knows about, or a part on order that the next shift chases again. A short, structured handover takes ten minutes and protects people, product and production.
AFME-FSC-01 Engineering BRCGS Audit Readiness Pack
A walk-round checklist, evidence list and non-conformance tracker so the engineering department is ready for a BRCGS Food Safety audit, announced or unannounced. Engineering features in more BRCGS non-conformities than most departments realise: building fabric, equipment condition, temporary repairs, maintenance hygiene, calibration and foreign-body control all sit with engineering. This pack gives the team a structured way to check readiness, gather the evidence an auditor will ask for, and track gaps to close-out. Which to use: this is the quick pre-audit walk-round. For a full, scored engineering food-safety audit use the Engineering Food Safety Assurance Audit Pack (EFSA); form F12 is the readiness checklist inside the AFME-BRC-ENG-001 toolkit.
AFME-FSC-02 Engineering Hygiene Clearance and Hand back Form
A controlled handover of equipment and areas back to production after any engineering work, protecting product from foreign bodies and contamination. Any engineering work in a food production area creates a risk of foreign bodies, contamination or damaged hygienic surfaces. A hygiene clearance confirms that the area and equipment have been checked, cleaned where needed and accepted by production or hygiene before food is processed again. Auditors routinely ask to see these records. Which to use: this is the quick, stand-alone form. Sites running the full BRCGS engineering system should use form F01 Post-Maintenance Clearance and Release in the AFME-BRC-ENG-001 toolkit.
AFME-FSC-03 Temporary Repair Register and Tag
Control temporary engineering repairs so they are risk-assessed, visible, inspected and permanently fixed before they become a food-safety or audit finding. Temporary repairs keep production running, but uncontrolled ones become permanent and are a common audit finding. This pack provides a simple procedure, a register and a printable tag so every temporary repair is assessed, labelled on the equipment, checked each shift and closed with a permanent fix. Which to use: this is the quick, stand-alone version. Sites running the full BRCGS engineering system should use form F02 Temporary Repair Register in the AFME-BRC-ENG-001 toolkit.
AFME-FSC-04 Glass and Brittle Plastics Register and Breakage Procedure
Register, inspection record and breakage procedure for glass, brittle plastics, ceramics and similar materials in food production areas. Fragments of glass and brittle plastic are hard to detect and can cause serious harm. Sites are expected to minimise these materials in production areas, list and inspect the ones that remain, and follow a controlled procedure when something breaks. Many of the items, such as gauges, sight glasses, light covers, HMI screens and inspection windows, sit on engineering equipment.
AFME-FSC-05 Metal Detector and X-ray Daily Check Sheet
A daily performance and failsafe test record for metal detectors and X-ray inspection systems, with clear actions when a test fails. Metal detection and X-ray inspection are often critical control points, and their value depends on correct set-up, regular testing with the right test pieces and a reliable reject system. Test piece sizes, positions and frequencies must come from your HACCP plan and customer codes of practice.
AFME-FSC-06 Critical Calibration Register
Identify, calibrate and control the measuring devices that protect food safety and legality, with an in-house probe check record and an out-of-tolerance procedure. Measuring devices that monitor critical control points, legality or product safety must be identified, calibrated against a traceable reference and controlled. This includes temperature probes, oven and chiller sensors, checkweighers and scales, pressure gauges on processes and pH meters. When a device is found out of tolerance, the site must assess what product was affected since the last good check. Which to use: this is the quick register for critical devices. For a full calibration audit, instrument register and out-of-tolerance impact assessment use the MAI-02 Calibration & Measurement Assurance Pack; form F11 is the version inside the AFME-BRC-ENG-001 toolkit.
AFME-HS-01 Machine Guarding Inspection Checklist
A practical inspection of guards, interlocks and safety devices on food production machinery, with a defect log for follow-up. Dangerous parts of machinery must be prevented from being reached. In food factories, guards are removed daily for cleaning and jam clearance, so they wear, get damaged or are refitted incorrectly, and interlocks are sometimes defeated. Regular, recorded inspections catch these problems before someone is hurt.
AFME-HS-02 Machinery Risk Assessment Template
A structured method and template for assessing risks on food production machinery, from new installations and modifications to existing equipment reviews. A suitable and sufficient risk assessment is the foundation of machinery safety. This template follows the general approach of BS EN ISO 12100: define the machine's limits, identify hazards across its whole life cycle (including cleaning, which in food factories is often the highest-risk task), estimate and evaluate risk, and reduce it using the hierarchy of protective measures.
AFME-HS-03 LOTO Procedure and Isolation Point Register
A model lockout tagout (LOTO) procedure for food production machinery, with a machine isolation sheet template, isolation point register and personal lock issue log. Many serious injuries in food manufacturing happen during maintenance, cleaning and jam clearance, when a machine starts unexpectedly or stored energy is released. Isolation is only complete when every energy source has been isolated, stored energy has been released or restrained, and zero energy has been verified.
AFME-HS-04 Toolbox Talks Starter Pack
Ten ready-to-deliver toolbox talks for food manufacturing engineering teams, each with key points, discussion questions and an attendance record. Short, regular toolbox talks keep safety and food-safety messages fresh and give engineers a chance to raise real problems. Each talk takes 10 to 15 minutes and is written for shop-floor engineers working in food factories.
AFME-MAC-001 Machinery Safety Law Explained: A Plain-English Guide for Food Engineers
A plain-English guide to machinery safety law for engineers who specify, buy, build, integrate or modify machinery in food factories. It explains when you become the manufacturer, assemblies and partly completed machinery, substantial modification, CE, UKCA and UK(NI) marking, how PUWER fits in, and what changes when the EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 applies from 20 January 2027 in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Which to use: read it alongside AUT-GDE-001 Understanding Automation and the PUWER guide.
AFME-MR-01 PPM Task Card Template
A template for writing planned maintenance tasks that are specific, measurable and worth doing, with a worked food-factory example and blank task cards. Many food sites run PPM schedules copied from OEM manuals years ago, with tasks such as check conveyor that give no limit, no method and no record of condition. A good task card states exactly what to check, what is acceptable, what to do if it is not, and how the job is done safely and hygienically.
AFME-MR-02 Common Root Cause Analysis Techniques
A practical, plain-English guide to finding the real cause of breakdowns, defects, foreign-body incidents and near misses in food manufacturing, so they are fixed once instead of again and again. It explains six of the most widely used root cause analysis techniques, when to use each one and how to carry it out step by step, and shows how to turn causes into strong, lasting actions that stand up to BRCGS, retailer and HSE scrutiny.
AFME-PD-01 Engineering Skills Matrix
A skills matrix to map the skills and authorisations of your engineering team, spot single points of failure and plan training. Food factories run around the clock, and a breakdown on nights often depends on who happens to be on shift. The matrix shows at a glance who can do what, where the team relies on one person, and where training will have most impact. It also provides evidence of competence for audits and insurers.
