Traceability and visibility are crucial measures for your manufacturing operation and production line. Proper traceability and visibility increase efficiency in the production line by catching defects before they leave the plant, thus reducing recall costs and effects. Without complete visibility, traceability systems will fail to report inaccuracies.

In fact, 69% of companies do not have total visibility over their supply chains, which leads many scrambling to prove everything is up to code during audits and inspections. When defects are identified in a product, organizations need to sort through mounds of data to track and trace raw materials. Otherwise, they may be facing a mass recall. These errors can cost your business millions of dollars, but the good news is that they are avoidable.

Effective tracking and locationing technologies empower manufacturing facilities to deliver fast, accurate, and quality service that secures efficiency for the whole supply chain. See how in our video:

Ensure Proper Tracing and Accurate Visibility with Barcodes, Inc.

Proper tracing and accurate visibility are key components to the well-being of manufacturing plants. Barcodes, Inc. ensures that your manufacturing plant is up to date with integrated solutions. Here are some ways proper tracing and visibility can impact your business.

1. Streamline cause analysis – Having access to the data on your products enables manufacturers to dig deep and find the root cause of problems. Identify and solve problems faster to minimize impact.
2. Consistent improvement – Once you are able to see how parts and products move through lines, it’s easier to see where improvement is needed. Knowing where and when bottlenecks and delays occur makes real-time optimization possible.
3. Enhance your value stream – Since traceability and visibility monitors how your products move through your manufacturing process, it also helps with value stream mapping. Equipped with detailed product genealogy records, manufacturers gain supply chain visibility, which provides your operation the ability to see the bigger picture.
4. Quality and engagement – Part traceability along the entire production line can also help find key points where quality check-ups should be added. It also increases accountability and engagement on the shop floor.
5. Simple real-time tracking – Easy-to-use technologies such as Zebra’s locationing hardware simplify on-the-fly tracking of your high demand inventory, by digitally connecting data to your centralized management system. This means workers spend less time looking through files and reports for faster and more accurate audits.

Download our brochure to see more ways effective tracking enhances the production floor.

Contact us today to learn more about RFID technology designed to maximize traceability and visibility in your manufacturing plant.

Tracking and managing valuable assets is major concern for many industries especially in manufacturing and warehouse environments. Whether you’re tracking a work-in-process or general inventory and assets, the greater accuracy and closer to real-time visibility you can achieve is directly connected to business success.

RFID-based systems provide an immediate and non-line of sight means to capture your inventory or asset collection. However, the most common passive RFID tags and readers have a limited range and still require a user to scan the tags or pass them through a fixed reader portal. This is where Zebra’s WhereNET active RFID solutions can provide the range that can be used over your entire facility, yielding maximum coverage.  With maximum coverage you will have real-time visibility into your entire business and operations, providing you with actionable data in order to make smarter decisions.

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While most barcodes you come across are printed on a label or paper-packaging of a product, in the manufacturing world and work-in-process applications many parts or components need to be marked with a barcode directly. Direct Part Marking is a process that  allows  users to mark a barcode directly on an item instead of printing the barcode on a label.

There are 3 main technologies available for DPM:  laser or chemical etching, dot peening  and ink jet printing. Each of these has specific  advantages  and disadvantages  in terms  of durability, cost and ease of reading.   The main advantages  of codes with  DPM technology are that  the code is permanently marked  on a surface and will  survive  for a long  time  (ideally  forever), regardless  of the  stress the part is passing  through during its’ life cycle. The main  reasons to choose codes with  DPM technology are:

• Items that need to pass through harsh testing processes  (chemicals  agents, thermal cycles, oil, moisture, etc.)
• Items that need to  be tracked  during  their  entire life cycle
• Very small items (difficult to label)

DPM technology was first  adopted  mainly  by the automotive and general mechanical industries. Currently, the popularity of codes using  DPM technology has spread into  different sectors  including electronics, chemicals  and healthcare  industries.

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