With today’s globalized economy manufacturers are faced with higher demands and requirements than ever before. Not only does quality managers need to be on top of the manufacturing and distribution process, meet increased quality requirements, but customers, and other stakeholders in the manufacturing value chain are also expecting better transparency.
In order to keep track of the manufacturing process and product history, traceability is crucial. In regulated industries traceability is important for compliance and, not the least, for risk mitigation.
Some of the top risks associated with the inability of tracking products in today’s global supply chain, include lost products and inventory, supply chain disruption and inability to effectively manage recalls.
1. Lost products and inventory
When products are lost or not tracked properly, companies may be unable to fulfil customer orders, leading to delays, frustrated customers, and potentially lost sales. Additionally, lost products and inventory can make it difficult for companies to accurately assess their inventory levels, leading to overstocking or stockouts. Inaccurate inventory tracking can also make it difficult for companies to identify and address issues within the supply chain, such as inefficiencies or product defects.
Overall, lost products and inventory can lead to decreased efficiency, increased costs, and damage to a company's reputation.
2. Supply chain disruption
Supply chain disruption refers to any event or issue that disrupts the flow of goods and services through the supply chain. When supply chain disruptions occur, companies may be unable to receive or deliver products, leading to delays, stockouts, and other issues.
Overall, supply chain disruption can have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line and can be difficult to recover from. Therefore, it’s important to have a plan in place to mitigate the risks of supply chain disruption and to be able to track and trace the products throughout the supply chain
3. Inability to effectively manage recalls
A product recall is the process of removing a product from the market or making a correction to the product due to a defect or other issue that could cause harm to the end-user. When a company is unable to effectively track and trace products, it can makes it difficult to identify and locate all affected products during a recall, which can lead to delays and increased costs.
Overall, an inability to effectively manage recalls can have significant consequences for a company, including financial losses, damage to reputation and legal repercussions. Therefore, it's important to have a robust system in place to track and trace products throughout the supply chain, in order to ensure that recall can be handled efficiently and effectively.
Another risk is also to get track of falsified goods and counterfeit products which could all damage brands and even threaten customer´s safety.
To manage these threats, more businesses are embracing new technologies to improve the ability to track and trace products throughout their lifecycle and across the global supply chain.
With an automated solution manufacturers can gain end-to-end traceability at product as well as batch level. This allows them to easily and quickly identify when, where, how and by whom their products were produced. End-to-end traceability also means that all documentation and product data is instantly available.
Implementing a digital solution such ChainTraced, help Quality Managers stop worrying about human errors due to manual handling of certificates and quality data.
ChainTraced supports organizations with an end-to-end traceability solution with the focus on tracing raw material to end product across the metallic value chain.
The solution helps companies stay on top of supply chain traceability, allowing you to:
What are the traceability challenges in your company? And how could your company expand your current traceability and quality control management systems? We´d be happy to connect and share our expertise and best practices.
