The ability of barcodes to convey complete information about products has increased the necessity of being in businesses. They assist the production process at every stage, starting with the determination of the components needed at every stage of production, namely the inventory and the product.
Barcodes can be seen on the raw material delivered to the facility. This is usually a prerequisite in material management and if there is no descriptive barcode on the raw material, the enterprise produces its own barcodes and writes it on the raw material entering the building. Only after barcoding is completed can the material be moved to the inventory location.
The raw materials transported to the inventory location should be linked with the barcode labels of the shelves where they are later placed. This makes the system even more precise as the operator will provide complete information on material and storage location. The next step will take place with the movement of the material for use in the manufacturing process. The inventory to be used in production is taken from the shelves and taken to the production area. Here, the records are updated at the production level. (The inventories to be used in the production area are transferred between the warehouses within the enterprise with the material demands from the production.)
First of all, parts and their quantities are verified through barcode labels, in case of a decrease in stock level, critical quantities can be followed and orders can be created for suppliers. In this way, the control of the production process is ensured by following the raw material, semi-finished product and stock levels. When the production entry is made, a new barcode is generated for the semi-finished product / product, and the newly produced product is then identified and tracked with this new label.
It plays an important role in preventing the damaged parts or the use of wrong parts in production. In production quality control, it can be followed whether the defective parts are sourced from raw materials or production.
Once individual products have been barcoded, the next step is to repack the product groups and have the reproduced barcodes. These are necessary to transport products to various areas and ensure that they can be traced at every stage until they reach the workshop or even the final consumer.
The Pick to Light or Pick By Light solution provides operators with visual guidance for the next parts and processes during the assembly process. Operators are informed about the progress of the installation with light and audible warnings.
Apart from assembly, it is a method that is frequently used in the warehouse parts of the factories.
Electronic Kanban: Kanban application, which is an important tool of lean manufacturing techniques, systematizes the movement of materials between processes, while optimizing the stock levels of the warehouse and between processes. This system, which ensures that there is not more inventory than the number of Kanban cards in the system, processes the required intermediate goods from the previous finished product box. This communication between Electronic Kanban and processes, material stock quantities, material locations can be tracked online by the relevant units.
Traceability is an essential part of quality systems. However, it is so difficult to implement. Because when the production notifications are made, there is a lot of data that needs to be recorded, and if these data are not made at that moment and the consumption is not made immediately from the relevant LOTs, the traceability will be broken and it becomes inextricable.
We can list the gains of Electronic Kanban and LOT Management System as follows.
Another application that can be mentioned is the right mold, right raw material, right work order matching. For example, we know that a mold used in a press machine can be printed up to 400 tons. If it is recorded that 700 tons should be printed in the opened work order, when the barcode is scanned, the error is that this pattern cannot be used in this work order.
An example can be given about the right mold and the right raw material matching. Barcodes to be given to raw materials and barcodes on molds are matched. When the work order arrives, first the mold, then the barcode on the raw material is scanned and if the match is correct, the work order starts to run. If any is faulty, warnings are given for replacement.
LOT Tracking: To explain in a single sentence, it is a group number given to the products. While entering the stock to the firm, the products are named as group and party, and while they are entered into the system, descriptive codes are given to monitor and control these lots. Each given code is called a LOT number. All issues belonging to stocks are made through these codes.
The traceability system is essential for an efficient and sustainable production. It provides real-time information that can be shared by suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers at any stage of the chain, as well as providing efficiency, accuracy, visibility and security.
In raw material purchases, in technical controls on the acceptance warehouse, parts such as length, diameter, and hardness are measured and stock acceptance or rejection is performed with tolerance values. Traceability of the stock within the enterprise begins.
When a problem is encountered with the product; All processes, from the date of shipment, to the warehouse exit, from the machine it is produced to, to the raw material supplier. It is even more important to reach the cause of this problem as soon as possible.
The source of the production problem can be easily identified by adding the complete record at every step on the route. For example, if this problem is sourced from raw materials, all products using this raw material can be identified instantly. Supplier related transactions can be initiated. Or, steps can be taken for the control, maintenance or replacement of faulty production equipment in machine-related errors. Thus, traceability also allows us to minimize the errors that may return from the end user.
After solving the problem at which stage of the process in a short time, all we have to do is to think about the problem. We must spend our energy on solving the problem, not on finding it. We can only do this when we provide LOT tracking, ie traceability.
No! Traceability is to be able to access all the details of a job in the enterprise.
For example, in a textile yarn dyeing company;
An international textile company where the company is doing contract dyeing specifically requested that some chemicals that could be used in the dyeing processes should not be used and wanted to be able to check retrospectively which chemicals were used in which production, because they wanted their products not to contain an allergen substance. In other words, the company wanted to follow even the works it had done in the subcontractor to ensure its own quality. Traceability is not only about identifying problems or tracking our stock levels, but also helping us to increase the quality of the material we produce, in other words to get ahead in the branding race.
It can examine all the retrospective records within itself, from the date of shipment of the product, to the exit of the warehouse, the last control, the machine where the product was produced, the operator using the machine, intermediate controls, the entry of the raw materials and auxiliary materials used into the warehouse and input controls, and even the supplier companies from which those raw materials and auxiliary materials were purchased. Thus, if any, erroneous transactions, etc. With the help of this system, it can easily detect the problem itself and develop measures to prevent its recurrence. Traceability occurs in two ways; Based on LOT and serial number.
LOT number refers to products produced in specified groups. For example, the products produced on the A machine on July 26 are given a single LOT number, or if the number of production is 500, the same LOT number is given to all 500 products. You shouldn’t confuse the model number with the LOT number. Model number is a number that remains the same even if the production machine and times change, it can be considered as a brand.
The other tracking option, serial number, is a number given separately for each product produced. Even if the products are produced on the same machine, same operator or on the same day, serial numbers will be different from each other.
When the lot and serial number come together, retrospective traceability of all products sold by the company is ensured. For example; You are driving your car and you notice a problem with one of the tires. Although you have recently inflated the tires, you notice that after a while it starts to deflate. Since this is a manufacturing error, the manufacturer will return it and give you a new one. So far there is no problem.
After the company gives you a new product, it will need to follow the LOT and serial number to understand what caused the problem with the old tire. Thanks to the LOT and serial number, the product can be accessed on what date, in which shift, in which operator and at what time it was produced, which raw materials were used in its production and many retrospective information I have mentioned. The production processes of the product are smooth and the raw materials used may have been a problem. As can be seen in the example we gave; Detailed analysis of the reasons for the return of the manufactured products is made possible by tracking LOT and serial number.
In summary, we talked about the transfer of traceability to the digital platform. Here I want to give another example. Let’s consider a metal cutting / forming line. We have a 500 meter metal coil sheet and it is envisaged to use a 300 meter metal sheet in the opened work order. When the operator completes the cutting and shaping and completes the work order, he may not be able to accurately determine how much he has used his raw material and how much is left because faulty production, waste, scrap will make it difficult to follow this consumption. However, this information is requested from the operator. Somehow, information is tried to be kept with manually filled documents. However, how much of the remaining raw material is, when it is put in which warehouse and by whom cannot be confirmed. We can understand the importance of this only when this raw material will be used again in the next work orders.
While the planner is preparing the new work order, he knows the remaining raw material according to the information from the operator and does not order a new raw material because he knows that the remaining raw material will be sufficient. When the work order reaches the operator, the operator tries to find the metal sheet. Sometimes it cannot find its place, sometimes the raw material it finds is not sufficient for that work order. It is necessary to order a new one. All this is a waste of time, money and effort. For this reason, it is important to move the LOT tracking to the digital environment. If the tracking is done with a MES System and barcode applications, we now know how much of the raw material we use in which work order, how much waste or scrap, which operator uses this on which device, how much of the remaining raw material and which warehouse is removed within seconds and correctly. somehow we can see.
In summary, “accuracy” with barcode allows us to get the most accurate information, eliminating user errors. It prevents confusion between similar products or products with similar codes.
“Fast data entry” requires us to collect the requested information in a fast and accurate manner far above the information to be collected manually, and since this collected correct information is in the computer environment, it reaches people or media who can process and evaluate this information very quickly.
With the increase in “cost” accuracy and the increase in data entry speed, labor cost will decrease and the system will be more economical.
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