-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueTechnical Resources
Key industry organizations–all with knowledge sharing as a part of their mission–share their technical repositories in this issue of SMT007 Magazine. Where can you find information critical to your work? Odds are, right here.
The Path Ahead
What are you paying the most attention to as we enter 2025? Find out what we learned when we asked that question. Join us as we explore five main themes in the new year.
Soldering Technologies
Soldering is the heartbeat of assembly, and new developments are taking place to match the rest of the innovation in electronics. There are tried-and-true technologies for soldering. But new challenges in packaging, materials, and sustainability may be putting this key step in flux.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
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.
Suggested Items
Siemens to Accelerate Customer Time to Market with Advanced Silicon IP Through New Alphawave Semi Partnership
02/12/2025 | SiemensSiemens Digital Industries Software today announced that it has signed an exclusive OEM agreement for its EDA business to bring Alphawave Semi’s portfolio of high-speed interconnect silicon IP to market through its sales channel.
Würth Elektronik at embedded world 2025
02/06/2025 | Wurth ElektronikIn addition to new components from the fields of wireless connectivity, power magnetics, optoelectronics and electromechanics, Würth Elektronik will also be presenting a pioneering concept at embedded world from March 11 to 13:
Optical Transceiver Shipments Projected to Grow by 56.5% in 2025
02/05/2025 | TrendForceWhile DeepSeek has successfully reduced AI training costs, the broader cost reduction of AI models is expected to expand application scenarios and drive an increase in global data center deployments.
SMTA Chapters: A Bold, New Direction
02/05/2025 | Nolan Johnson, SMT007 MagazineSince joining SMTA as director of chapter relations about seven months ago, Alicia Yao has had some immediate and definite impact. Her background includes management in the luxury product retail space which, if one reflects on it, provides philosophical parallels to customer relationship building in electronics assembly.
Swissbit Unveils PCIe Gen4 SSD A1200
02/04/2025 | SwissbitSwissbit introduces the latest addition to its PCIe portfolio, the new A1200. The PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSD is designed to meet the demands of high-performance, mission-critical applications, focusing on consistent performance, low latency, and data integrity.