Managing Traceability in Product Development

HI all,

A big discussion in ongoing at my current employer concerning tracebility of the ingredients and products from product development. In practice, product development is done after regular production, in the same kitchen. This leads to products intended for test use being stored next to regular and approved products. For our regular products we use track & trace software.

Should we integrate track & trace of product development into the system to comply with BRC or is it sufficient to mark the PD products as such with a regular name and optional version code eg. PD Blend X V2 that is tracked on a separate system (excel & paper)

What if products registered in the regular track & trace are used in the alternative PD track & trace? My gut feeling tells me what goes in the PD system must be written as outgoing in the regular track & trace.

Opinions?

Hello Jan,

Why do you want to have separate systems?
I suppose you are using your regular ingredients + some new test materials.
What makes it difficult to put the PD products in your regular T&T system?

Besides the tracking and tracing by software, you should always identify these products and make sure no one else then PD responsible will take or use it. You should IMO somehow bock these products, so they won't be accidentally shipped to your customers.

Well, I myself would like to integrate it as much as possible into the track&trace software, but the top management insists on the paper & excel approach because it is supposed to allow more flexibility, would create less clutter in the database and make data retrieval faster for non PD activities if it stays separate. Because they also insist that only one person is allowed to enter information in the track & trace software from the deskside (not for tracking production activities) they fear that that person is going to be overwhelmed by the request to enter samples in the system.

So far, our product developer has all but abandoned any registration concerning his activities and leftover samples are used at will in production. Since i'm reworking the track & trace dataflows and databases i was hoping to integrate this in one software packet. However, all discussions with the top management end with the statement "everybody does PD the paper way so you make it that way too". The main problem is that all their ideas in theory could lead to certification but ould require a savant with ocd in document control. So with my question i was polling if that statement had any validity...

I think the nub of your problem there is the sample material being used at will in production.

If this is the case and you have no traceability it's a real problem. However if you have a paper based system it will be just as good as a track and trace if used properly. The problem you might run Into is then getting the production team to record it's use properly so you can track it through the system.

I think ultimately that using sample material in regular production is bad practice, but then again not knowing the system , products, company size etc it's difficult to say. Sounds like you need to prove your point through an example of a failed traceback through the use of samples In production, or implement a solid alternative system.

I think i found a way to embed tracability in the seperate excel file. I used 4 seperate files:

1. Incoming sample log containing: Name, supplier, date, Identifier
2. Test batch log: Name, Project, date, Identifier
3. Test batch description: Identifier test batch, Used ingredients + identifiers, calculations for weight, price,...
4. Outgoing Sample log: Identifier test batch, list destinations + weight.

Did I miss anything?