Traceability is the ability to follow the history of a product through records: which material lot it came from, which machine, operator and settings made it, how it was inspected and where it was shipped. It works in both directions, from a finished part back to its inputs, and from an input lot forward to every product that used it. Parts are tied to their records by serial numbers, lot numbers, date codes or travelers. In measurement, the word also means that a gauge calibration links back to national standards.
Example: A supplier warns that one heat of bar stock had low hardness. Because every traveler records the heat number, the plant finds the 3 work orders that used it, quarantines the 120 parts still in stock and tells the one customer who received the rest.
Without traceability, one bad input lot can force a company to scrap or recall everything made in that period. With it, the response is limited to the parts actually affected, and customers and auditors can see exactly what happened to a suspect part.
COPLAIN AI PLATFORM
Upload your existing procedures and Coplain AI drafts audit-ready work instructions, job aids and forms from them.
Generate yours automatically with Coplain →Related Tools & Templates