Keeping Pace with Track and Trace
US businesses inventories have topped $1 trillion for the last several years. Keeping track of all of those goods and the assets associated with them is increasingly important to the owners of both the inventory and the trucks, containers, and other assets deployed along the supply chain.
Product safety issues have focused more attention on the ability to locate and remove or recall product that is already in the distribution cycle. Coupled with security issues and regulations mandating some industry segments to maintain complete control of products they manufacture and distribute, the task is huge and growing.
Fortunately, for logistics and supply chain managers, technology exists to support their efforts. The issues include controlling supply chains, managing the chain of custody, improving recalls, and being compliant with government regulations, explains Jack Walsh, director of sales for Videojet. “For us, track and trace is not just knowing where the case or pallet is but also what was in that case—that’s the new wave in the market,” says Walsh. Most people know where they ship a case, but once that case or pallet is broken down, they don’t have visibility to specific items that were shipped.
Most people have systems to track where they ship a pallet or even a case, Walsh continues. There’s no reason to replace that system. Videojet’s approach is to create the parent/child relationship between the item and the case.
“The simple approach is to use two systems in tandem and connect them—at the file level on the software side,” says Walsh. At the mechanical level, there are a number of ways the parent/child relationship occurs. In-line scanning or cameras help inside the facility. “You may have to modify production to automate batching to collect the data,” he points out. You won’t be able to get the parent/child data with just one piece of equipment, it’s a combination of some software, some production line control, and