What Is Product Traceability?
As per ISO 9001 standard of the International Organization for Standardization, Traceability is defined as:
The ability to trace the history, application, or location of which is under consideration. When considering a product, traceability can relate to:
- The origin of materials and parts,
- The process history, and
- The distribution and location of the product after delivery
Traceability is the process of tracking all aspects of manufacturing and distributing a product from the procurement of raw materials up to production, consumption, and disposal. It is to disclose when and where the product was manufactured by whom.
Recently, the importance of traceability has increased because of improved product quality and a rise in safety awareness. It is now expanding to sectors like electronics, automotive, food, and pharmaceutical.
Types Of Tracing
- Traceability may also include upstream/downstream tracing or internal/external traceability.
- Upstream tracing allows the tracing of products from consumers to manufacturers and suppliers.
- Downstream tracking enables tracing individual copies or more along the production chain from manufacturer to the consumer. This is essential for products offered with a warranty or guarantee by the producer.
- Internal traceability means monitoring the movement of products within a single process, facility, or organization.
- Chain traceability or external traceability means monitoring the movement of products in multiple processes. The organization can identify where the product has been before entering or where it’ll go after leaving the facility.
Product Traceability In The Manufacturing Sector
Traceability in the manufacturing sector is tracking and documenting all information throughout the manufacturing process from procurement of raw materials, parts of machinery, assembly, finished products, distribution, and sales.
Product traceability systems improve production efficiency and product quality control because of real-time visibility resulting in problem detection and elimination of bottlenecks in production.
Organizations carrying out traceability procedures have the access to historical information about their products, including
- Origin of components
- Inspection notes
- Production life-cycle
- Time spent at the respective workstation
- Product destination
Importance Of Product Traceability
The manufacturer of the product is responsible to take immediate action if a product quality problem occurs. A slow or ineffective response can create a sense of distrust among customers, shareholders, creditors, or business partners. Consumer protection laws have to be followed.
Some Critical Considerations That Emphasize The Importance Of Traceability Are:
1. Product Recall:
Traceability is crucial for a quick, effective, and cost-efficient product recall.
2. Quality Control:
Traceability encourages a thorough quality control process because of the high-level control it has over the manufacturing. This is valuable in the automotive, food, and defense industries.
3. Operational Efficiency:
By implementing traceability systems, organizations can optimize their production processes with efficiency and reduce wastage. The factors that cause wastage could be avoided if discovered early through traceability.
4. Customer Satisfaction:
With a vigorous tracking system in place, organizations can implement incremental improvements. They can present high-quality products and meet customer satisfaction levels.
Benefits Of Product Traceability
Organizations can access multiple benefits of product traceability They are:
Root Cause Analysis:
One can identify the extent of the potential problem by performing an in-depth analysis before the distribution of the product. This can help the organization isolate its root cause.
Continuous Improvement:
Traceability aids the adoption of lean and flexible manufacturing processes to minimize waste and encourage continuous improvement by adopting green manufacturing into the business.
Value Stream Mapping And Optimization:
Value stream mapping also called material and information flow mapping helps the user to understand and redesign manufacturing processes to gain the most value. Organizations can understand the USP of their products and optimize those aspects.
Compliance Procedures:
There are compliance mandates in place for industries such as food production, automotive, aerospace, and defense that have to be strictly met.
How Has COVID-19 Affected Product Traceability?
The COVID-19 crisis has unquestionably inflicted the global economy with challenges in product tracing. The ongoing pandemic is dreadful for product recalls to the end consumer and causes damage to the brand reputation. This can cause unexpected disruption in the supply chain and have grave repercussions.
By combining data collation and effective traceability solutions across systems that are harmonized in real-time, these challenges can be overcome. By leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, the assembled information can be cross-referenced with a transactional system of records within the supply chain network.
In the healthcare sector, traceability has helped with data sharing, rapid case identification, digital epidemiological surveillance, and interrupting community transmission through contact tracing for COVID-19 with smart applications.
In the agriculture sector, producers leverage traceability technology to enhance crop management and optimize harvest time and distribution. It also assists in risk management related to illness, outbreaks, and recalls.
The global pharmaceutical traceability market is projected to grow by USD 4.18B. Throughout 2020-2024 the market size is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21%. Drug counterfeit and theft are major reasons behind the market growth. Traceability acts as an anti-counterfeiting technology to resolve such challenges.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the need for data sharing, evaluation, and data-tracing. Currently, we are in the initial stages of data-driven manufacturing and supply chains.
However, with the adoption of digital tools like IoT sensors, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Advanced Data Analytics, we’re progressing in product traceability.
