In industrial production, a finely orchestrated interaction of all components, raw materials, production statuses, knowledge of storage locations, and other components is essential. Ensuring this on a daily basis is a major challenge for companies in various industries.
If audits, certification requirements, or recalls then come into play, it is essential to know what the production situation is like at all times. Data must be collected and the traceability of individual components, recipe components, raw materials, but also of finished end products must be guaranteed in the production software (ERP, MES, WMS).
With traceability software, seamless traceability within production processes can be guaranteed. The main goal is to achieve transparency, from the raw part through the production process of the individual parts to the final product. This is made possible by linking production orders with unique serial numbers of the individual parts. The technology used for this could be, for example, barcodes, labels, FINs, lots, serial and batch numbers, data matrix codes, or RFID chips. If the solution is linked to the MES in a process-oriented manner, other shop floor data can also be included and linked. Consequently, almost every data record can be assigned to a product by means of track and trace.
With the extension “EB Tracking & Tracing” you get full transparency for your production line. Using an integrated data management system from ERP (e.g. SAP ERP or S/4HANA) in addition to the MES Legato Sapient of the Germanedge company Gefasoft, Track & Trace not only allows for uninterrupted and user-friendly display of production orders, but also for supplementing them with real-time data from production on the various states, storage locations, fill levels, etc.
This way, individual production units can be tracked continuously. A production unit may comprise a single workpiece (discrete manufacturing, variant), a “batch”, or an entire “lot” of products.
Each manufacturing or production step can be precisely recorded for each individual production unit. Other data which is also retrieved includes:
Furthermore, individual production units can also be blocked online via “black lists” and standard reports which provide information about production times at individual workstations or about the exact use of materials can be generated.
Traceability of individual components in production can be guaranteed with Objective’s tried and tested traceability solution, e.g. when using externally stored raw materials. Real-time monitoring of production and all its components (machines, statuses, products, raw materials) is more accurate than ever before with traceability.
The days of excel-based data acquisition are over. Traceability also allows the overall equipment efficiency (OEE) to be determined automatically, since each individual product and its components can now be measured and displayed in the software in relation to the utilization of machines and transport processes. The utilization of the total production facility thus tends towards the optimum. No one production step slows down the other or lowers the expected quality, as traceability can be used to balance these in the three areas of quality, availability, and performance.
Another advantage of the traceability solution is the improved overall quality of the production master data, as all irregularities are immediately visible and correctable for the user in the software, which continuously improves the data quality. Likewise, business calculations for the production of goods and merchandise can be improved and made more precise, as all production-relevant data is available in real time. This enables production and sales-critical KPIs to be brought into harmony with traceability and benefits the entire company with greater transparency.
When traceability solutions are used to make product quality and production more transparent, recalls can be handled in a more targeted manner or avoided altogether. Be it a car or medical device manufacturer: The fewer negative headlines received due to quality problems and recalls, the more conducive for branding and building trust.
With our decades of experience in implementing traceability solutions in the manufacturing industry, both for products and processes, we are able to offer efficient, easy-to-implement software solutions that have been proven hundreds of times over. Track and trace is therefore an integral part of our MES and MOM platform EdgeOne in a digital world.
Would you like to know more about our solutions? Then please write me using the contact form. I will get back to you as soon as possible.
Dominik Weggler
Sales Team Germanedge