Traceability is a critical aspect of any manufacturing business as it provides the ability to recall products, track production and match replacement parts quickly. There can be many reasons that necessitate manufacturers to trace the origin of products. Australian media has brought to our attention the need for traceability with the recall of some defective Takata airbags, 
outbreaks of listeria in contaminated rockmelon, and cases of tampering/sabotage of strawberries contaminated with needles, to name just a few. At Mescon, we have seen firsthand the countless hours and product lost when a manufacturer has not had good traceability in place; they do not understand what is going on, where the issues are, or the magnitude of those issues. Fortunately, we have also been able to provide reliable systems that have prevented such time and product loss from occurring again. Unfortunately, too many people view traceability from the perspective of IF it is needed rather than WHEN it is needed. Therefore, they do not enjoy the full benefits and confidence that comes from the knowledge of reliable traceability.
There are many benefits to be gained from traceability. Depending on the industry, these may include:
- Compliance with government and industry regulations
- Ability to define the scope of the recall
- Intelligent and reduced responses to recall events
- Reduction of the severity of poor quality and noncompliance
- Improved responsiveness
- Protection for customers, your brand and customer satisfaction
- Real-time data for proactive decision-making
- Quantification for grants, improvements, etc.
Unfortunately, too few businesses have traceability in place, and if they do, it is likely to be paper-based or perhaps, at best, a simple spreadsheet. Many may also think that traceability is the mechanism with which to respond when a product becomes defective or harmful, and a recall has to be activated. Traceability is more than that. It is about knowing what is happening where, be it good or bad.
To take this a step further, ask yourself, “Do I have visibility into my materials and processes to deal with quality issues before they escape from the plant or production environment?” Traceability is very much about you ‘seeing in’ to what is happening and having your finger on the pulse. It gives you the confidence to know what is right and what is not right, and to take control before it escalates. As good as the intent that paper-based traceability might be, the operator will only enter what they are aware of and want to enter. It will nearly always contain historical information (not real-time), be prone to error and neglect. Manual entries can be onerous and can easily be lost or destroyed, leaving you with nothing when it really counts!
Good traceability allows you to ‘trace back’ and perhaps offer peace of mind that there is ‘something’ to rely on if (when) something goes wrong. Full traceability, on the other hand, will help you improve and transform your manufacturing and production to be the best it can be. Full traceability provides visibility from the supplier of your raw materials through to the production processes and forward to the receipting of your goods. Other benefits to be gained from full traceability include:
- Real-time information stored for instant access as needed – reduce administration and increase productivity
- A history of raw materials – from when and where it is received through to being consumed in production to where it is received in final product form – a complete product genealogy.
- Sound knowledge of processing activities and process parameters
- Linking ingredients/parts with lot numbers and their suppliers
- Keeping track of repairs
- Confidently and silently maintaining regulatory and other requirements
- Tracking data that allows you to identify issues
Should you ever need to respond to a product failure or recall, you will want to know that you are in control of the matter: that you know where the affected product is, why the issue occurred and that it will not occur again. The last thing you need is to feel as though the situation is like a runaway train about to create havoc. Full traceability means real-time event monitoring, and with real-time monitoring, alerts can be created to notify the personnel across the supply chain who need to know when an incident occurs. This will allow you to ‘freeze’ inventory, whether in the plant, warehouse or in transit, thus preventing further escape of affected products. Full traceability also offers the benefit of reducing the time needed to limit exposure to the public. Paper-based recalls can potentially take days or weeks, but full traceability can potentially reduce this to minutes. If a recall must be implemented, it would be nice to have accuracy over the recall to know exactly which product to pull, rather than pulling 100% of the product.
Collaborating with supply chain partners can be problematic due to business considerations such as IP, but it is important for implementing complete traceability across the entire supply chain. One break in the chain can lead to loss of traceability. If the material is sourced from overseas, then complexity rises, but it is not an impossibility. For many companies, information like raw material supply, production routes, process parameters, quality values etc., will reside in several different systems.
Many businesses may already have pieces of a traceability solution in place but have not been able to achieve effective traceability. One system that offers complete traceability quickly and simply is TrakSYS – a web-based Manufacturing Execution System (MES) that can be integrated with many existing technologies and business systems. Designed to reduce the complexity of managing manufacturing requirements, this smart and agile solution will maximise your investment in existing infrastructure to avoid obsolescence. Running in an all browser-based user interface, TrakSYS allows access to information from virtually any device, anywhere and anytime. See more on full traceability with TrakSYS here: https://vimeo.com/301966545.
For further information about how TrakSYS can provide you with the solutions you need, go to https://www.mescon.com.au/traksys.
