Feature Tracking & Traceability


TRACEABILITY AT THE HEART OF YOUR BUSINESS


Duncan Moir, product director, process manufacturing, at Epicor Software, looks at how traceability can be made easier and bring about benefits that you wouldn’t necessarily expect


W


herever a company sits in the process manufacturing supply chain, the impor- tance of effective traceability to meet EU legislation and regulatory requirements is always understood. Recalls are unavoidable, but it is the way they are handled within the industry that needs to improve - over a period


of 33 months the Food


Standards Agency issued a total of 141 food alerts, product withdrawals and recalls affecting hundreds of products. In recent years the public has gained a greater understanding of traceability through high profile recalls such as the 2012 horsemeat scandal or Sudan 1. Traceability played a key role in min- imising the risks in all cases, and whilst it can’t stop criminal acts such as live- stock passport fraud, its primary role is to allow the supply chain to assess the extent of a risk and stop those ingredi- ents getting further up the supply chain or into the hands of consumers. The challenge for food processors has


always been making traceability work efficiently and with high accuracy - the number of entries needed for even a simple operation can soon spiral out of control. Take a company producing a single pie filling that uses 30 ingredi- ents, all delivered three times a week, to produce three batches, going to eight distribution points - that is a total of 32,400 traceability points in a single week, and that doesn’t even include contact with different machines and storage locations.


Data volumes Traceability produces huge amounts of data, and many companies still run this mission critical area as a paper-based process. When an issue is identified that could spark a store recall or pro- duction run withdrawal, confidence, accuracy and speed become critical. You should be able to identify all


10


affected batches in a matter of minutes. The


importance of traceability


throughout your products has never been greater, not just because of recent high profile scares, but because of the requirements put in place by retailers - after all it is their name, not yours, that gets plastered across the media when a problem arises.


When a problem does occur, speed is of the essence. If you cannot give com- plete confidence in the granularity and accuracy of your traceability, all of your product will be pulled from the shelves, at your cost, not to mention any sup- plier fine that might be imposed, or range review exclusion. Equally the longer it takes to identify affected batches the greater the risk to the public, and the more chance a blanket pull of your product will occur. For most companies traceability is still seen as a necessary, but expensive and time consuming process. It


is


often manual, paper-based, and prone to human error - sometimes data is even re-keyed into spreadsheets, offer- ing another chance for inaccuracy. Ultimately we all have to ask, “Can I, in under five minutes, identify every ingredient or component delivery, batch, storage location, machine, person, qual- ity test, process and destination that has been involved in a finished product’s life and at what point in time?” Achieving that can lead to thou- sands of records even for the simplest of operations, so how do you make that work and how do you sift through it in five minutes if you need to?


Getting closer


The answer is getting your traceabil- ity as close to the physical manufac- turing process as possible. All of the challenges above can be overcome by having traceability as part of your ERP solution and using effective scanning technology. In this way it


FEBRUARY 2014 Automation


Above and below: the challenge for food processors has always been making traceability work efficiently and with high accuracy


requires no additional input from staff working in the production work- flow from goods inwards to final dis- patch - traceability happens electronically at every interaction. Fully ERP integrated traceability not only removes risk and administrative burden, it increases confidence, mar- gins and enables staff to focus on making fantastic products. However, this is only part of the value-add of effective traceability - we have seen cus- tomer revenues increase, relationships improve and in some cases even proces- sors mandated for other parts of a retail- ers supply chain.


Above: Duncan Moir, product director, process manufacturing, at Epicor Software


All quality and production man- agers dread the day of a customer audit or a recall. It is never a pleasant experi- ence, but having all the information at your fingertips allows you to react quickly and minimise the risks to your business and customer relationships. The demands of the major food retailers are only going to increase. In the current competitive environment, suppliers that can demonstrate effec- tive traceability embedded in their organisation, will reap rewards as others fall by the wayside.


Images


©iStockphotos/eyecrave# ©iStockphotos/Sam Burt Photography


Epicor Software www.epicor.com T: 01344 468 468


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