Traceability is an important supply chain management tool that provides visibility into a company's supply chain activities and history. It allows products to be traced from raw materials to end consumers. Implementing traceability standards brings interoperability and enhances visibility for supply chain actors. Traceability enables requirements to be met, such as facilitating recalls when unsafe products are identified. The goals of traceability include tracking products forward and tracing them backward to identify supply chain events and responsible actors.

1. Traceability Primer

2. Supply chain actors implement traceability standards, processes and best
practices to meet a wide array of business, technical and regulatory
requirements. Traceability is also a very effective management and
governance tool that can be integrated into the existing business processes
and extended supply chains activities of any company.
Enabling standards-based traceability brings about seamless interoperability
between supply chain actors. It also delivers enhanced visibility into an actor’s
supply chain activities: from receiving of products or components to
production, warehousing, and dispatching of products to other supply chain
actors or directly to end consumers. When reviewing specific needs, actors
will implement various levels of product traceability to enable those needs
such as:
Drivers for Implementing Traceability Best Practices

3. Traceability & Industry Standards
Supply chains can be global and complex. There is not one simple schema
describing who is involved in the supply chain, from upstream to downstream in
all industry sectors. Yet, there are typical roles and functions in all supply chains.
By the time a consumer product is purchased, consumed or used, it may have
gone through a number of supply chain events and physical transformations.
Each event or transformation may have involved a number of different actors.
Tracing the products history becomes a critical and urgent requirement when an
unsafe product has caused harm to a consumer or user of the product.
Traceability Definition
Traceability is the ability to trace the history, application or location of that
which is under consideration. (ISO9001:2000)

4. 4
UPSTREAM
SUPPLIERS
INTERNAL
Manufacturing / Assembly &
Storage
DOWNSTREAM
CLIENTS
ENABLE DOWNSTREAM TRACEABILITYENABLE UPSTREAM TRACEABILITY
Traceability: Generic Principles & Aims
ENABLE INTERNAL TRACEABILITY
INTERNAL TRACEABILITY

5. 5
B2
Organisations
Organisations with
defective products
Product Flow
A3 B2 C1 D1 E3
A2
A4
A5
A1
B1
B3
D2
D3
E2
E1
E4
E5
A6
C2
B4
E6
Manufacture 1st processor 2nd processor Distributor Point of Sales
TRACING (to trace backwards)
Traceability – General Principles & Aims

6. 6
A3 B2 C1 D1 E3
A2
A4
A5
A1
B1
B3
D2
D3
E2
E4
E5
A6
C2
B4
E6
TRACKING (to track forward)
Traceability – General Principles & Aims
Manufacture
1st
processor
2nd
processor Distributor Point of Sales
B2
Organisations
Product Flow
Defective Product Flow
Organisations with
defective products

7. Terminology Challenge
Product supply chains involve many actors – from brand owners, own-brand
retailers, designers, manufacturers, contract manufacturers, producers, value-
added services providers, distributors, retailers, Internet retailers, importers,
brokers, carriers, third-party logistics, product safety testing and certification
bodies, and many others.
Although these terms for actors are commonly used, they may:
- be used in different ways depending on the context, reference document and
associated definitions;
- cover various functions as actors may perform a range of functions (e.g. a
retailer can play the role of an importer and a brand owner of own-branded
goods identical to, and owned by, other parties, but will have different
identification codes);
- have legal implications for reporting of unsafe products and remedying the
issue; and
- have legal and financial liability associated with them that requires risk
assessment and product liability insurance coverage for both the physical
product and possible litigation.

8. Traceability Data – can be both public and private
 Master Data: permanent/lasting nature, relatively constant across time, not subject to frequent
change, accessed/used by multiple business processes and system applications, neutral/relationship
dependent
 Transactional Data: created during the physical flow of goods, can only be collected when events
occur.

9. Cumulative tracking
Single source data base
Distributed Information Sources
Or « traceability network »
One up – One down
Types of Traceability networks
For limited
communities
The optimum
model for the
future ?

10. Next Generation Strategy: “Value Traceability”
supply chain
optimizationcompliance
branding
&
marketing
risk reduction
Reduce Risk
Asset Optimiz.
Increase rev.
Lower costs
Delivering….
Consumer Focus
100% Perfect Recall
100% Traceability
Differentiation
Compliance Traceability
While compliance
and risk reduction
aspects can be
critical, they do
not encourage
investments
beyond the
required minimum
FOCUS:
stay in business
FOCUS:
increase value
Value Traceability