Global Sourcing Spotlight: How Global Sourcing Drives Innovation
One World, One Industry: IPC APEX EXPO 2025 Marks a Special Anniversary Year
Nolan’s Notes: Your Golden Ticket
The Challenge of Traceability Data: A Call for Action
August 7, 2023 | Dr. Eyal Weiss, CybordEstimated reading time: 1 minute
Imagine the following scenario: You’re working in the electronics manufacturing industry as an operations manager in charge of overseeing the assembly of cutting-edge devices. One day, you receive news that one of the series of products you’ve shipped to market has experienced a major malfunction, causing an uproar among customers. You frantically try to pinpoint the root cause only to lose yourself in the labyrinth of incomplete traceability data. The frustration mounts, leaving you grappling with the consequences of an ineffective traceability system. But what if there was a way to transform this experience into a seamless operation?
Traceability is the cornerstone of ensuring product quality, compliance, and customer trust, but traceability data as it exists today is not nearly as reliable as one might hope.
Enter individual material traceability, an upgraded approach to filling in data gaps, mitigating vulnerabilities, and eliminating potentially costly consequences.
The Challenge
Despite diligent efforts by manufacturers to implement robust traceability systems, three gaps persist between expectations and reality.
The first is a date code mismatch. In some cases, the traced date code—the code assigned to a product indicating the year and week it was made—differs from the real date code.
The second is a production lot mismatch. These are cases in which the traced production lot—the number used to relay the batch of origin—does not reflect the real lot code. This disparity indicates the presence of multiple lots within a single traced lot, which suggests reel design variations may have been grouped and packaged together accidentally.
The third is a part number mismatch. A part number reflects an item’s particular rating, voltage, speed, and many of its other qualities, and these parts need to be assembled with compatible ones. When a mix-up occurs and the wrong components get paired, the functionality of the end product is compromised. To make matters worse, it is very hard to detect this discrepancy during onsite testing.
To read this entire article, which appeared in the August 2023 issue of SMT007 Magazine, click here.
Share on:
Suggested Items
Collins Aerospace Approved to Begin Full Rate Production of MAPS Gen II system
03/13/2025 | Collins AerospaceCollins Aerospace, an RTX business, has received approval for Full Rate Production of the Mounted Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Generation II system (MAPS GEN II).
Hon Hai Research Institute Launches Traditional Chinese LLM With Reasoning Capabilities
03/13/2025 | PRNewswireHon Hai Research Institute announced today the launch of the first Traditional Chinese Large Language Model (LLM), setting another milestone in the development of Taiwan's AI technology with a more efficient and lower-cost model training method completed in just four weeks.
Speaking the Same Language as Your Fabricator
03/12/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineWe do indeed have a failure to communicate; designers and fabricators often seem to be talking past each other, which can lead to jobs being put on hold. We asked Jen Kolar, VP of engineering for Monsoon Solutions, and columnist Kelly Dack to share their thoughts on ways that we can break down the communication barrier between design and fabrication. As they point out, a design kickoff checklist and a solid review process can be invaluable tools in a designer’s toolbox.
IPC Global Standards Driving Factory of the Future
03/10/2025 | Chris Jorgensen, IPCFactory of the Future represents a revolutionary shift in electronics manufacturing, aligning the industry's processes with the demands of efficiency, innovation, and sustainability. With challenges such as rapid product lifecycles, stringent quality requirements, and increasing emphasis on environmental responsibility, stakeholders across the supply chain—OEMs, EMS providers, and PCB manufacturers—face mounting pressure to modernize their operations.
Curtiss-Wright Receives $18 Million Follow-On Order from U.S. Marine Corps
03/07/2025 | BUSINESS WIRECurtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions Division today announced it has received a follow-on order from the U.S. Marine Corps, PEO Land Systems, via Defense Logistics Agency - Tailored Logistic Support (DLA-TLS) contract, to provide its Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) based tactical communications technology for use in the Application Server Module (ASM), part of the Combat Data Network (CDN) program.