What is raw material traceability and how can it save your brand from inventory management challenges

With rising incidences of unsafe products in global supply chains, product safety has become critical for both brands and consumers. Globally, the role of traceability has been acknowledged by the industry to enable product safety. 

As per Statista: Traceability of raw materials is one of the main challenges for luxury and fashion companies that are on a path towards more sustainability. In 2020, Kering Group, which is a conglomerate company that specializes in personal luxury goods reached an overall traceability score of 88 percent for key raw materials.  

Apart from the industries mentioned above, other industries also face the brunt of not utilizing a traceability system. 

Before we delve into more details, allow us to shed light on what raw material traceability is. In addition to that, this blog post will also talk about how raw material traceability can save you from inventory management challenges.

What is raw material traceability?

Raw material traceability is the function to track raw materials from the moment they get dispatched from the supply point until they reach the factory. This smoothens the manufacturing processes. Through traceability procedure, you can find information on a product like:

1. Suppliers
2. Items
3. Inspection notes
4. Distributors

Not having a traceability system in place will damage your bottom line and undo all your hard work. The benefits of implementing track and trace function are tremendous and can sort everything for organizations.

How can it save your brand from inventory management challenges? 

• Increase in efficiency

Appropriate raw material traceability allows manufacturers and suppliers in increasing the efficiency of their overall plant. Timely traceability of raw materials prevents any delay from occuring in the functions. On top of that, the buyers can be intimated from time to time regarding progress on delivery. This makes them plan their processes in advance and smoothens their functions.

• Quality control

A track and trace system encourages quality control that is invaluable in industries like automotive and food production. By keeping a check on the delivery of raw materials, the supplier of the raw material can make an estimate of the time within which the raw material should reach the destination. This allows the manufacturers to get quality raw material for their production processes.

• Continuous improvement

Modern organizations are lean and flexible. Traceability of raw materials encourages the adoption of a lean manufacturing process that minimizes waste and fosters serial improvement. This benefits the suppliers as well as the manufacturers of the brands to continuously improve their processes. 

• Avoid the costs of non-traceability

The market is flooded with stories of product failures due to non-implementation of an appropriate traceability system. Such disasters can be avoided with the implementation of a proper traceability system that covers the entire process. As a result, brands can avoid the risk that non-traceability brings. 

• Seamless root cause analysis

With a traceability system in place, it gets much easier to identify potential problems before raw material gets shipped, check the level of problem and find its root cause. This benefit results in solving the problems of the organizations, whether small or large. 

Final takeaway:

Are you missing on raw material traceability? It’s time for you to start taking it seriously. 

If you are a manufacturer or a supplier who tracks and manages inventory manually, then you’re not alone. You don’t just have to adopt raw material traceability, but choose the digital way to do it. 

Genefied can help! One of its solutions, SupplyBeam, is dedicated to managing tracking and tracing for organizations. We are a track and trace solution provider to take the burden off your shoulder. 

Connect today!