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Tracking and tracing: Taking the devil out of the detail
Author : Martin Walder, Vice President of Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric
06 May 2020
Guarding against risk is vital to surviving in the highly competitive food and beverage industry. The areas of risk are constantly growing as businesses face pressure to enhance quality, reduce costs and improve efficiency. As companies seek to build greater resilience, it is essential that they adopt smart technologies to help guarantee their business remains on track.
Today’s consumer demands more information on the products they buy, from its carbon footprint and origin to its exact make-up. Companies are facing greater scrutiny on product labelling and food safety regulations, with traceability throughout the supply chain and automation becoming key to boosting efficiency, time-to-market, safety, and, in some cases, brand sentiment and sales.
Businesses must meet additional regulations, whilst simultaneously meeting customer demands. This means identifying and recording every relevant piece of information about a product, ingredient or a process – enter tracking and tracing technology. Adopting tracking and tracing technology optimises manufacturing capabilities and improves efficiency across manufacturing plants worldwide.
Why track and trace
Track and trace technology has developed over the last few years, with businesses understanding the importance of accountability. Today’s manufacturers are using it to better manage their entire production systems, paving the way for truly smart manufacturing to become a reality.
In particular, track and tracing technology is enabling businesses to document evidence of food safety compliance, recording all necessary information. The technology allows manufacturing plants to identify and track a product from its original point of origin, through every process and packaging up until the end consumer. With this ability, businesses are able to communicate more transparently with regulatory authorities, easily demonstrating every movement and operation of the production process.
The system also provides factories with greater product visibility, providing insight into products which might be defective so they can be halted before reaching consumers. In the event of a product withdrawal or recall procedure, the track and trace technology will allow manufacturers to recall the products faster and more effectively. This will not only save them money but will ultimately save their reputation.
Ultimately track and trace technology allows manufacturers to improve their operation’s quality and efficiency, while building consumer trust and proving industry compliance. By ensuring the technology encompasses all activity and products, businesses can effectively guarantee the reliability of their products and minimise risk.
Securing regulatory compliance
Staying compliant with the industry’s increasingly stringent standards is an ongoing battle for manufacturers. With requirements changing frequently, all systems must provide flexibility to meet any regulations. This can include tamper-proof documentation, critical parameters recording, critical control points management, devices calibration, equipment design and maintenance.
Complying with the legal regulations for manufacturing products can be tough, but it is essential to ensure standards. Visibility of the products will help manufacturers meet the challenges of government regulations and will allow companies to manage detailed product histories to meet process manufacturing standards and regulations. With the right digital solution, you’ll be able to reliably track and trace every product, using less energy and fewer resources, from end to end across the entire value chain.
A long-term solution
Using digital innovation to address your food and beverage challenges is the key to success. Digital batch recording offers significant advantages over paper procedures. Full features digital recorder products enable operators to record individual batches with a start-and-stop button on the screen or by external input via a bar code scanner. The main advantage of digital batch recording and signing is that it gives quality personnel all the data they need for easy reporting and compliance to standards.
The significance of customer satisfaction, profits and securing regulatory compliance is paving the way for traceability to become a long-term solution. Many manufacturers have realised that implementing tracking and tracing technology will not only meet their strategic goals but will also affect customer satisfaction rates and increase overall accountability.
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