The customer wants the cert pack before they will pay
The parts shipped last week. Accounts are waiting on the invoice, and the customer has emailed to say it will not be processed until the material certificates and the C of C arrive. Somebody now has to work out which delivery of 303 stainless those parts came from, find the certificate from the stockholder, check the cast number matches the bar tag, and scan it.
The bar was used on four jobs. The offcut was put back on the rack and used again on a fifth. Nobody wrote down which.
Why the link between bar and job breaks
Traceability usually fails at two points: goods in, and the saw. At goods in, the certificate is emailed or comes in the box, and gets filed by supplier or date instead of being tied to what was received. At the saw, the operator cuts from whatever bar is nearest, and the job card does not ask which one.
- Certificates are filed separately from the delivery note.
- Bars are not tagged with an internal batch number when they arrive.
- The job card has no field for heat or cast number.
- Offcuts go back to the rack without their identity.
- Free issue material from customers is mixed in with your own stock.
The cost of a missing cert
Payment is held. The office loses an afternoon hunting. If a certificate cannot be found or does not match, the parts may have to be quarantined or remade in certified material, and the customer's quality team starts asking questions about your controls. For aerospace, defence or medical work, it can put your approval with that customer at risk.
The traceability chain we build
- At goods in, the delivery is logged on a tablet: supplier, material, grade, size, quantity and heat or cast number. The certificate is photographed or pulled from the stockholder's email and stored against that delivery.
- An AI extraction step reads the certificate and checks the grade, size and cast number against what was ordered and what the bar tag says. Mismatches go to a person before the material is released.
- Each bar or plate gets an internal label with a barcode.
- At the saw or the machine, the operator scans the job traveller and the bar. The job now records which material batch it used. Offcuts get a new label that keeps the parent batch.
- When the job ships, the cert pack is generated: C of C, material certificates for every batch used, and any outside processing certificates, as one PDF.
- A search screen answers the reverse question: which jobs and customers received parts from this cast number.
| Step | What gets recorded |
|---|---|
| Goods in | Delivery, grade, size, cast number, certificate |
| Labelling | Internal batch barcode on each bar |
| Cutting | Job number against batch |
| Offcut returned | New label linked to parent batch |
| Dispatch | Cert pack assembled for the job |
After it is in place
Cert packs go out with the delivery, so invoices are not held. When a customer's auditor picks a job from two years ago, you can show the material, the certificate and the operator in a few clicks. And if a stockholder ever warns you about a suspect cast, you know which jobs to check.
Do you recognise this?
- Invoices are held waiting for certificates.
- Certificates are filed by supplier, not by job.
- Offcuts on the rack have no identity.
- You could not quickly say which jobs used a given cast number.
- Customer audits mean a day of pulling folders.