The term traceability is commonly associated with the food industry. That only makes sense since the health of consumers is at stake. For food producers, traceability also serves as an internal tool to prevent huge costs and reputational damage due to a recall. Obviously, these worries cause sleepless nights in other industries as well. To help manufacturers across all industries reduce these risks, we always develop and handle equipment with traceability in mind.
Calamities and other trouble
Automation, and in particular robots, have eased and accelerated countless production processes in the last decades. However, by capturing and adding all kinds of additional data at several stages of production processes, including data that may seem irrelevant at first glance, there is still a world to be gained. Especially in terms of tracking & tracing. As long as relevant production data are randomly scattered across several databases, manufacturers will always have a hard time accounting for defects in case of calamities or other trouble to their customers. All the more so because frantically browsing HMI panels in a desperate attempt to uncover any relevant data usually produces little result too.
Traceability report
To avoid this kind of trouble we use robots to apply a QR code, or any other code or serial number, to products across the entire production process. Based on these codes all relevant production data can be disclosed any time later on at the touch of a button using the reporting tool within the SPMS (Selmers Plant Management System). In the unfortunate event of, say, a pipe defect leading to an oil spill, once placed on the bottom of the sea, all relevant production data captured earlier, will help finding the root cause of the leak. In this particular case this may include information on for example welding seams, which can easily be integrated in our overall traceability reporting as a third party report.
Less downtime, fewer repairs
The right parameters and settings required for adequate traceability are determined in advance in close consultation with the customer. Soon after commissioning or connecting existing equipment to SPMS, customers generally start reaping the fruits in terms of improved quality, smooth traceability, less downtime and fewer repairs. If you want to profit from similar benefits throughout your production processes, just call your sales contact or send an email to sales@selmers.com
