In any manufacturing industry, quality & safety of products is of paramount importance.
However, when it comes to the highly-regulated process manufacturing industries, its significance goes several notches higher, because any slight deviation in the quality standards can have disastrous effects.
For example, pharmaceutical or food & beverages manufacturers face a perennial challenge to maintain the quality standards, so that the end consumer gets products which are safe for consumption every single time.
Any inconsistency here can potentially be threatening to the consumer’s health. To avoid any such mishaps, the supply chain planners constantly need to improve traceability in supply chain.
It goes without saying that traceability is a critical component within the supply chain of any manufacturer, as it provides the ability to quickly recall products in the event of non-conformance, as well as track production.
It is especially important because problems can occur at any point along your supply chain – from R&D through materials handling to assembly to shipping.
And in such situation, not having the traceability can be devastating for the manufacturers.
As a manufacturer, you have few choices, as to achieve traceability you can either rely on old-school methods of doing things manually on paper, or through spreadsheets or multiple disparate systems.
But, none are as effective as a manufacturing traceability software.
Life without traceability software for modern manufacturers
Delivering high-quality and safe products is the ultimate objective of process manufacturers. But it is never easy, as they face numerous challenges along the way.
The consumers today have access to details about virtually every minute aspect of the products they have, like where it comes from, how it is made, what it contains, etc.
This newfound empowerment of the consumer has posed challenges in front of the manufacturers to maintain greater supply chain transparency & making it less complex, and to meet the stringent regulatory & safety requirements. In order to achieve all this, the manufacturers look to adopt different approaches.
The manual methods, and the use of electronic spreadsheets, are never effective in the long run.
Relying on such methods proves costly for the manufacturers, as gradually their staff is left with the data that is either outdated, inaccurate, or both. Their employees waste too much time correcting errors with the warehouses and suppliers, and spend more time dealing with unhappy customers.
Same goes with having multiple disparate systems to manage different functions, as it makes getting hold of the right information for the manufacturers a time-consuming process.
Furthermore, the presence of disparate systems may even affect the day-to-day functioning of their staff, as they may be forced to spend substantial time of their day juggling between applications to perform different tasks.
And this time-consumption is disastrous at the time of recalls.
As then, every minute counts because the lives of people using your product and your brand image is at stake. The more time you take to find the defective lot, the greater would be the impact of the problem.
How traceability software for manufacturing changes the game?
What process manufacturers require is a single, integrated ERP solution with traceability functionality that can streamline all their processes.
Such a software primarily comes with strong tracing functionality, which can detect the fault that lies in the precise part used to manufacture a particular product.
It allows the manufacturers to track problematic goods from the customer, all the way back to the supplier who sent the parts. Take a look how a manufacturing traceability software does it:
1) By tracking materials throughout the supply chain:
An ERP solution with manufacturing traceability functionality registers the materials when purchased and received and generates raw material codes, tracks them through the production process by assigning job numbers to the products being produced in real time, and through the finished goods being delivered to the customer.
It generates powerful reports that contain all kinds of information about the transactions including both job number and raw material codes, thus giving the manufacturer end-to-end visibility.
2) By ensuring quality:
A software with traceability functionality saves time, money, and other resources, and ensures quality by eliminating error-prone manual processes of recording the lot numbers of the products and entering them into spreadsheets.
3) By allowing speedy recalls:
Traceability allows locating any product anywhere in the supply chain, making recalling of adulterated and unsafe products possible.
It thus plays an important role in consumer safety by allowing speedy and targeted recalls and subsequently, immediate withdrawals.
4) By helping meet regulatory requirements:
The industry-specific regulations and guidelines are only getting stricter, and need to comply with them has never been so strong.
An ERP solution with traceability helps meet all such local, regional, national, and international regulatory requirements, prevent unfair trade practices, and record maintenance.
5) By reducing downtime:
Traceability helps improve the effectiveness, productivity and profitability of the organization by eliminating the downtime.
With a real-time system, all the raw materials, work in progress and finished goods are bar-coded and tracked throughout the manufacturing process.
Real-time reporting provides key manufacturing information to minimize waste, reduce downtime and maximize yield.
BatchMaster ERP for your traceability needs
BatchMaster ERP Software provides best-in-class traceability software for process manufacturing businesses, assuring them of availability of vital information quickly and accurately.
It centralizes the product data into one system, thus enabling the manufacturers to trace the entire supply chain and all the information relating to the product at any given time.
This information proves invaluable in case of product recalls, locating replacement parts, tracking production etc.
With BatchMaster, the manufacturers can also eliminate manual methods, save clutter and time, and access information anytime and from anywhere.
BatchMaster ERP gives you the speed and insights to reduce operational errors, improve response times, and make better decisions.
Its benefits to your business include accountability of the entire supply chain from vendor to customer, support for GMP guidelines and industry-specific regulations & standards, reduced errors and ordering time which leads to on time delivery, increase in customer satisfaction level, improved overall efficiency, and greater control over the business.
To know more about it, visit our website https://www.batchmaster.co.in/. You can also write to us at sales@batchmaster.com to know more about our other products.
