Production component tracing
Traceability is the ability to track every part and product throughout the manufacturing process, from the moment when raw materials enter the factory to the moment when final products are shipped. Knowing which exact components make up a finished product is essential to quality assurance, inspection, and control.
In Cin7 Core, components are tracked by mapping the batches/serial numbers of components to batches/serial numbers of the finished products. You can perform this mapping before, during, and after production.
This article assumes you have some familiarity with the Cin7 Core production module, we recommend starting with the articles below.
Prerequisites
Advanced Manufacturing subscription is required.
You should be familiar with production BOMs and production orders.
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Components and finished products to track must have one of the following costing methods:
FIFO - Serial number
FIFO - Batch
FEFO - Serial number
FEFO - Batch
Special - Batch
Special - Serial number
Configure traceability settings
Cin7 Core allows you to track components either all of the time, none of the time, or optionally at the production BOM level. This is controlled from your production process settings.
Select Settings from the main menu, then General Settings
Go to Production process customization
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Select one of the following options for Product tracing:
Never traced
Always traced
Optionally traced (you can turn product tracing on only for some BOM versions)
Trace components for a production BOM version
This applies if you have Product tracing set to Optionally traced in your production process settings.
Optional product tracing is applied to the production BOM version; some versions may be traced, while others may not be traced.
Go to Inventory → Products and select your product.
Go to the Production BOM tab.
Select a BOM version.
Check the Product tracing box to turn on product tracing for this product.
Map batch/serial components to finished products
The Batch/serial traceability tab is activated for a production run when:
The production order has been Released
The production run has been Created
Traceability settings are set to Always traceable, or Optionally traceable and turned on for the current production BOM
On this tab, you can map component batch/serial numbers to finished product batch/serial numbers. Mapping can take place before, during, and after production.
Before production starts
To map components to finished products before production starts, you will need to reserve the components and specify batch/serial numbers for the output products of an operation.
Component reservation is executed on the Production Run - operation level manually before the production process starts, i.e. before Start button is pressed for the operation, but after Auto-consume button is pressed to populate the components and their locations to the components grid in the operation.
Check the checkbox in the Reserved column of the components grid to reserve components. Please see Managing Production Orders - Reserve components for a production run for more information.
You can view and edit (only for products with Special - Batch/Special - Serial costing method) the reserved components from the Reservation tab.
Next, go to the Output tab of the production run and add a finished product, entering a serial/batch number and expiry date if applicable. This is possible at any point after a production order is released and a production run is created. This will add the product to the Batch/serial traceability tab.
During and after production
Finished products are added to the Batch/serial traceability tab automatically when a batch/serial finished product is added to the Output tab, Output dialog, or the MES app. Components are added automatically to this tab when they are reserved or consumed during consumption.
View and edit batch/serial traceability
Now, you can go to the Batch/serial traceability tab to see which components map into which finished products.
Click a finished product to see the list of traced components. From this tab, you can edit the pre-defined values and select another batch/serial number for the component.
NOTE: Mapping does NOT mean selecting the batch/serial number itself, but defining which component batches are used in which finished product batch.
In the case of several batches being used for one finished product batch/serial number, the Add line or Scan function allows adding an additional component batch. This tab can be edited and updated until the order is completed.
Individual mapping lines can be deleted by clicking the X symbol next to a line, or press Clear to remove all mapping lines.
Search allows searching of finished products and components by finished product SKU, name, batch/serial number and component SKU, name, batch serial/number.
Print tracing list
Print the Production run traceability document from the Batch/serial traceability tab, pressing Print.
Product traceability reports
You can use the Finished Product Traceability reports to see exactly what components have been used for a finished product, including explosion of nested products.
The Batch/Lot Recall function also shows which finished products a product has been used in, but also shows the suppliers, customers, and stock on hand of that batch, and can prepare recall letters for your customers.