A customer asks about a batch
A manufacturer buys recycled HDPE pellets from you for making containers. Their quality team emails: a batch from last month had a colour problem, and they want to know what went into it. Which input loads, from which suppliers, processed when, with which quality results.
Your production manager starts digging. The production run is on a whiteboard photo and a shift sheet. The input loads fed that day are on weighbridge tickets, but which ones went into that run is a guess, because several lots were in the feed bunker. Quality test results are in a spreadsheet by date. He sends a best-effort answer two days later.
The customer is polite, but asks whether you have a traceability system. You do not, really.
Why batches cannot be traced
Plastics reprocessing mixes material at several points. Unless each point is recorded, the link between input and output is lost.
- Incoming loads are recorded on the weighbridge but not tracked into production.
- Feed bunkers and silos mix several input lots.
- Production runs are recorded on shift sheets, not linked to inputs.
- Finished bags or octabins are labelled, but the label does not link back.
- Quality results are stored separately by date.
What traceability your customers or any recycled content claims require is for your business and its advisers. We deal with keeping the records that make it possible.
What missing traceability costs
Customers who make products from recycled material increasingly expect traceability, for their own quality and for the claims they make about recycled content. A supplier who cannot provide it is at a disadvantage against one who can.
Quality problems are harder to fix without traceability. If you cannot tell which input caused a problem, you cannot stop buying from the supplier responsible, and the problem recurs.
Answering each enquiry by hand also takes the production manager away from production.
How we build batch traceability
What we build links every stage with a record.
- Incoming loads are given a lot number at the weighbridge, with supplier, grade and weight.
- When lots are fed into the bunker or line, the operator scans the lot, recording time and quantity.
- Production runs are recorded with start and end times, line, settings and operator. Inputs fed during the run are linked automatically, with overlapping lots shown as a mix.
- Finished bags or octabins are labelled with a batch code linked to the run.
- Quality test results are recorded against the batch.
- Sales link batches to customers. A trace from any batch shows inputs, run, quality and customers; a trace from any input shows which batches and customers it reached.
| Stage | Record | Linked to |
|---|---|---|
| Intake | Lot number, supplier, grade | Weighbridge ticket |
| Feeding | Lot scanned, time, quantity | Production run |
| Production | Run, line, settings | Finished batches |
| Quality | Test results | Batch |
| Sale | Customer, date | Batch |
The next quality enquiry
The customer's quality team asks about a batch. The production manager enters the batch code. The trace shows the run, the three input lots fed during it with their suppliers, the quality results and the other customers who received bags from the same run. He sends the answer that afternoon.
One of the input lots came from a supplier whose material has been linked to colour problems before. The production manager raises it with purchasing, and the supplier's next loads are checked more closely.
Can you trace a batch today?
- Customers ask what went into a batch and the answer takes days.
- Input lots are not tracked into production.
- Production runs are recorded on shift sheets.
- Quality results are not linked to batches.
- You cannot say which customers received material from a particular input.