Trace any batch, lot or serial
in both directions.
Batch traceability software for plants, processors and warehouses. Follow a supplier lot to every customer it reached, and a complaint back to the inputs behind it, without a morning spent in binders.
A complaint quotes a batch code. Then what?
A buyer's QA team emails at 10:15. Their customer found something wrong in a pack, and the pack says batch 24K117. Your QA head digs the batch record out of a box file. It lists three raw material lots in someone's handwriting, one of them smudged.
The stores ledger gives supplier names for two lots. The third was renumbered when the bags were issued, so it matches nothing. Dispatch is asked by email which distributors got 24K117. The reply comes after lunch, built from invoices, and it misses the stock transferred to the second depot.
By evening you have a partial answer and little confidence in it. The buyer wants to know whether to pull stock from shelves, and you cannot say how much of the batch still sits in your own godown.
With a connected record, QA types 24K117 and sees the three supplier lots with their COAs, the release decision, and every dispatch and transfer that carried the batch. Then QA opens the suspect lot and sees every other batch that consumed it. That second question is the one paper never answers.
Where batch traceability software catches the number.
Lot tracking holds only if the number is captured at all five handoffs. Miss one and the chain breaks there.
The supplier's lot becomes yours.
Goods are received against the PO, the supplier lot and COA are recorded, and your own lot label prints at the bay.
Lots go to the floor.
Stores scan the label when material is issued, so the issue slip names a lot instead of a description.
A batch records what it used.
The batch record lists the lots and quantities consumed, taken from the scans rather than recalled at shift end.
Held or released.
Your QA team marks a batch released or on hold, and a held batch cannot be picked for dispatch.
Batch or serial meets the invoice.
Packing scans the batch, or each serial, against the invoice, which creates the customer half of the trace.
Three quiet ways a trace falls apart.
Bags become kilos become cases.
Define each conversion once per item and store every quantity with its unit. Then 40 bags of 25 kg reconcile with the 1,000 kg consumed and the cases packed.
Three numbers, one thread.
Your supplier's lot, your internal lot and the batch code each keep their own field and a link to the others, so nobody keeps a mapping on the whiteboard.
Fixes that hide the mistake.
A named approver corrects a wrong quantity or lot and records why, next to the original. A trace that was silently edited convinces nobody.
What gets traced, trade by trade.
The chain differs by industry. The discipline of one scan per handoff does not.
Food processing
Supplier lot to internal lot to batch to release to dispatch, with the recipe version used. A batch complaint becomes one lookup instead of calls to three departments.
Industry pageChemicals
The certificate of analysis sits on the batch, so every dispatch from it carries the right COA. A customer asking for last month's certificate is answered from the order.
Industry pageElectronics
Each serial is read off the carton at packing and linked to its invoice and dealer. Warranty checks become a lookup on the serial, not a search through dispatch registers.
Industry pageManufacturing
Each lot carries the BOM revision it was built to and its QC hold status, both visible at the dispatch desk before a vehicle is loaded.
Industry pageAgriculture
Collection point slips carry the farmer, weight, moisture and grade, so a buyer's consignment traces back to the villages it came from.
Industry pageMining and metals
Stockpile, grade sample and weighbridge ticket stay with the load. A tare correction keeps the first weighment visible beside the new one.
Industry pageRenewable energy
Installers scan module and inverter serials on site, never typing them from memory later, so a service ticket opens on the right system.
Industry pageWarehousing
Lot and expiry held by bin, with first-expiry-first-out picking. When a client asks where a lot is, the answer is a bin code.
Industry pageCapturing numbers without slowing the floor.
If tracing costs the line time, the line will skip it by the second week.
What a working trace lets you answer.
- Recall readiness: which customers received the affected batches, what is still in your godown, and who to call first.
- Serial number tracking for warranty: whether this unit is covered, which dealer sold it, and whether a replacement is linked to it.
- Supplier claims: which supplier lot sits behind the failures, with the COA and receipt to back a claim, as on short supply and returns.
- Repeat failures: defects grouped by supplier lot, line, shift or model in reports that open the source records.
- Customer audits: the trace for any batch, with each correction and approver shown from the audit trail.
- Document requests: the COA and spec version that applied when the batch shipped, kept as in document versions.
What QA heads and plant owners ask about tracing.
Does a traceability system make us compliant?
No software does that by itself, and we will not claim it. What a connected trace lets a business show is who received what, which lots went into which batch, who released it and where it went, with every correction kept. Which records a regulator, auditor or buyer expects is for your QA and regulatory team to define. We build to that definition.
Our old dispatches have no serials on record. Is that a dead end?
No. Start serial capture at packing now. For units already in the market, let the dealer or customer register the serial with the invoice when they first contact you, and verify it once. The gap shrinks as older stock ages out.
Our ERP has a batch field. Why is that not enough?
Often the ERP records batches on sales invoices but not on issues to production. You can trace forward from a finished batch but not back to supplier lots. We fill that gap on the floor and send the results to the ERP through an integration where it allows.
Do we need RFID tags or new scanners?
Rarely at the start. Printed barcode labels and the rugged phones or scanners you already own cover most floors. Test with your own devices and label formats before buying anything.
What happens when a lot is split, blended or reworked?
Each of those is a recorded event, with quantities in and out. A blend becomes a new lot that points to its parents, and reworked material keeps the link to its first batch, so the trace survives in both directions.
Which link in the chain do we fix first?
At the weakest link you can name. For most processors that is batch consumption: which lots went into which batch. For electronics and solar it is serial capture at dispatch or installation. We pick it with you after reading one real week of your receipts, issues and dispatches.
Pick one batch. We will trace it with you.
Send a batch code from last month and the registers that mention it. We will show where the thread breaks today and what it takes to keep it unbroken.