What is traceability in manufacturing and why is it important?

Traceability in manufacturing is being used to address and overcome the ever-increasing competitive pressure and legal requirements that face the industry. It enables entities to be tracked and traced throughout the production process, ensuring quality control, efficiency improvement, and regulatory compliance.

Without traceability systems in place, manufacturers risk compromising their supply chain management effectiveness.

What is traceability?

According to ISO 8402, traceability is the ability to trace an entity's history, application or location through recorded identifications. To combat issues, manufacturing processes are becoming increasingly automated. This involves the capturing, storage and management of information using technology.

Traceability collectively ensures that product quality standards are met and helps adhere to regulations. Through this process, manufacturers can gain real-time information about the production and equipment and ensure that manual operations are running effectively to reduce complications.

Why is traceability important?

Risk management

Traceability is important for many reasons, one of which is that it acts as a risk-management tool. As a risk management tool, it takes two forms: product tracking and product tracing.

Product tracking

Product tracking is the capability to follow the path of a specified unit of a product through the supply chain as it moves through organisations. This makes traceability important in the manufacturing industry to yield a structured and holistic approach to managing daily operations.

Product tracing

Product tracing is the capability to identify the origin of a particular unit and/or batch of products located within the supply chain by reference to records held upstream in the supply chain. This can make traceability important when there are instances such as product recalls and complaints investigations. 

Ensures authenticity

 Records and traceability indicate the authenticity of a certain item or material etc. Without the correct product knowledge, the manufacturing process can be hindered and slowed, leading to poor quality manufactured products or no products at all.

Compliance

Traceability in manufacturing is also important because it helps companies adhere to government regulations, lessening product recalls.

The below shows how each component of a track and tracing system benefits the chain of a manufacturing process. 

 Manufacturing execution system (MES)

• Provides detailed historical information related to production, inspection, genealogy and usage
• Captures component lot/serial numbers per finished assembly
• Documents variables at the time of manufacture such as temperature, pressure, etc.
• Identifies a specific person on a specific production shift
• Creates a template for the manufacturing system to guide all steps in production
• Tracks work in process (WIP) and provides insight into production of all current orders and the status at each stage of production

 Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system

• MES layer integrates with the ERP system
• The ERP has the master information on materials, suppliers and vendors, while the MES tracks the production shop orders including component consumption, WIP and finished goods

Data capture and mobility hardware

• Mobile computers, bar code scanners, RFID tags and readers, and industrial wireless local area network (WLAN) work in sync to capture build information. This allows the MES and ERP system data to be available to mobile workers in real time.
• Devices to capture all traceability methods, including:
  - 10 and 20 barcodes
  - RFID
  - Direct part marking: laser etch, dot peen, chemical edge, stamped
  

Additional software systems

• Applications that create mobile and fixed reader front-end interfaces to MES and ERP systems, quality and lab systems. This allows users to access key enterprise applications on mobile devices such as handheld mobile computers or allow for automated data capture via fixed readers.
• Management software to:
  - Manage, maintain and monitor mobile devices
  - Manage, monitor, and ensure security and compliance within wireless networks
  

Professional Services

• Designs and implements traceability solutions within manufacturing environments through consulting, project management and vendor selection

Supports business goals

The desire for visibility in the manufacturing process, customer satisfaction, profits and regulation compliance is pushing many to look at traceability as their long term solution. Many have discovered that implementing a traceability program is a proven method to meet their strategic goals. The benefits of implementing a traceability system are monumental, and can result in; increased revenues, improved customer satisfaction and reduced manufacturing liabilities. 

Examples of how traceability can benefit an organisation

Increased customer satisfaction & safety

In the event of a recall, manufacturers are able to minimise the impact by only recalling items with specific serial numbers built with the faulty item, therefore reducing expenses and customer impact.

Meet government and compliance mandates

Real-time visibility helps food manufacturers meet the challenges of stricter government regulations, and general manufacturers can manage detailed product histories to meet discrete and process manufacturing standards and regulations.

Improve data accuracy

With traceability, human error is significantly reduced as materials, parts and ingredients etc. are handled with technology. Product, ingredient, part, employee number, quantity and supplier information can be automatically captured accurately and timely rather than written on a tablet and transcribed into a computer system.

Improve operational productivity

Additionally, through the efficiencies gained by the removal of manual processes, businesses can save millions in lost revenue, recall costs, damage control campaigns, litigation and fines through the use of traceability solutions to prevent quality issues.

Focus on generating revenue

By implementing automation and traceability solutions in discrete manufacturing, you can monitor warranty and part information, providing opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell complementary products and services. Labour hours can also be reallocated to focus on revenue-generating activities instead of being spent on double reporting which occurs when data is collected manually and later transferred into a computer system.

For process manufacturers, retailers are increasing their track-and-trace initiatives and supplier requirements. Thus setting the stage for businesses that are proactive in taking steps to meet these changing demands to have a competitive advantage.

Find a solution that works for your manufacturing organisation with The Barcode Warehouse