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Traceability has never been more important than now!
C
urrent supply network pressures are forcing companies to scour the world for oscillator and crystal product because their normal
supply chain is unable to deliver. This presents enormous potential for problems, not least being maintenance of full traceability of the manufacturer, batch numbers etc. according to Andy Treble, Sales and Marketing Director at Euroquartz Group. Traceability is the capacity to access any or all information about a
product throughout its lifecycle by using a system for recording identification of materials and parts. Traceability also relates to the ability to track and trace such information along the entire supply chain. It is essential to fully understand how important traceability is to
your company – most would say it is vital – especially when trying to comply with international standards such as ISO9001 or AS9100. Most suppliers in the market offer “full” traceability but many
companies are willing to accept this without any due diligence as to what is meant by full. There are six simple questions to consider when looking at full traceability.
1: Where exactly is the part manufactured and by whom? Some suppliers will not divulge this information, in which case there is no knowing where the product is made.
2: Which production line was used? Some suppliers will also not divulge this information, in which case, again, there is no guarantee as to where the product is manufactured.
3: What level of quality audit has your supplier undertaken? Can the supplier demonstrate this by providing full reliability data or audit details, for example?
Barcode contains Unique part number date codes, batch codes etc.
Andy Treble, sales and marketing director at Euroquartz Group explains why full traceability throughout the product lifecycle is so important
4: Does the supplier have any control or input into the production or design process? Is the supplier just a customer to the manufactured source or are they involved at an engineering level?
5: Are manufacturing batch codes available as opposed to a date code? Manufacturers often mark crystal and oscillator product at the time of shipment so date codes may not identify the manufacturing batch.
6: Is the supplier able to demonstrate full traceability? It is much easier to claim full traceability than to demonstrate it. Of course, this may not matter to your company if the product
supplied is of excellent quality and performs correctly. So, let us reconsider the current supply chain crisis where some
dealers and suppliers are trying to benefit from the situation with their only interest being in moving product. Recently, with a large quantity of watch crystals, purchased by one
supplier, all appeared normal until product testing when a high failure rate of 20% became evident. The provenance of the product was not easily identifiable, and this serves as a lesson to those purchasing on the grey market or because of an offer in a random email. There is now an increased risk of counterfeit product entering the
supply chain especially in the semiconductor sector. These product shortages mean that many CEM production lines may be on stop waiting for scarce parts, a situation that can cause companies to take undue risks in sourcing product. This is especially dangerous in the aerospace and defence industry
where counterfeit prevention procedures are employed to combat such issues. In these very abnormal times, the potential for non-
28 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2022 | ELECTRONICS TODAY
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