Traceability is the ability to go from a finished product back to the material, process conditions and operators behind it — and forward from a given material to every product it went into.
Identify input materials
Operator, equipment and conditions
Link quality to the lot
Trace causes and affected output
Traceability is the ability to go from a finished product back to the material, process conditions and operators behind it — and forward from a given material to every product it went into.
Traceability works in two directions: backward from a product to find a cause, and forward from a suspect material to find the affected scope. The first answers complaints; the second bounds a recall.
Building it requires identification first. Material lots, work orders and finished goods each need an identifier, and those identifiers must be linked. Collecting data without identification produces records that never join up.
How deep to trace is a balance of cost and requirement. Serial-level tracing is powerful but heavy on the floor; lot-level is lighter but widens the affected scope. Regulation or customer requirements often decide this level.
History is a record of what happened. Traceability is the state in which those records are linked by identifiers so you can walk back through them. Any amount of history without those links is not traceability.
Terms that make more sense read together.
A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) records and manages how a work order is actually carr…
SystemsA Bill of Materials (BOM) is the structured list of which parts, and how many of each, go in…
QualityA nonconformance is any product or process that fails to meet a defined requirement. Recordi…
SystemsA work order is the execution unit that tells the floor what to make, how many, and under wh…
What IYULAB provides in this area.
Questions that come up when evaluating Traceability.
With the identification scheme. Until you decide how materials and products are identified, none of the later links can hold.
It depends on the requirement. Lot level suffices in many industries; regulated products and safety components are where serial tracing is genuinely needed.
Decide from how much information must be carried and the printing and reading environment. QR for dense data in small areas, barcode for simple identification.
A look at your equipment and current workflow is usually enough to scope it.
Talk to an engineer