Training courses to educate on traceability

A, leading supplier of Packaging Coding Management software, has launched a suite of training services to help manufacturers get the best out of their coding and labelling systems.

Claricom, leading supplier of Packaging Coding Management (PCM) solutions, has launched a suite of training services to help manufacturers get the best out of their coding and labelling systems.

One of the key areas of training is to demonstrate how to better meet the fulfilment of legal and retailer requirements for accurate traceability.

Although much has been written during the last 18-months on the issue of food traceability - made more prominent by new EU legislation, and recent high profile food scares - Claricom argues that the implications of simple 'date coding' errors are not being sufficiently addressed.

The result is that the traceability agenda is not driven by proactive solutions to prevent errors, but driven by the reaction to errors already committed.

In many instances, for safety and expediency, all possibly affected products are withdrawn from sale.

Nobody will argue that consumers should be put at risk, but the costs of this are very significant - an estimate from Datamonitor for the cost of the Sudan I recall was an average of GBP 170,000 per product - and the product is no longer available on the shelf so what is the impact to availability and sales? The premise of Claricom's training is to explore how traceability can be assured and how the affected product can be more precisely and readily identified to prevent this scenario.

The final point of traceability is, generally, the date or lot code on the label.

The irony is that, in most instances, this information is typed in on a day-to-day basis, and therefore is prone to human error.

As Paul Lawlor, Technical Director at Claricom, explains, "With manual date and lot coding processes, human error is inevitable; one retailer recently confirmed that over 80% of product withdrawals are due to coding or labelling errors." A Package Coding Management System will eliminate human error and ensure accuracy, through the use of centrally controlled and distributed information that bypasses manual data entry on a day-to-day basis.

Similarly, automatic Coding Management will allow the lot code to be unique to the day, line or batch of manufacture.

A Package Coding Management System allows the implementation of improved product and batch specific traceability, down to the operator responsible if appropriate, and provides the electronic audit trail to support this.

This will increase the speed of recall if required, and provides the option to be more specific in the nature of the recall, therefore reducing the cost to manufacturers and retailers.

In addition to teaching how to utilise PCM to reduce human error and improve the audit trail, Claricom training courses also consider the issue of traceability in both directions through the supply chain.

For example, if a product is found to be contaminated and the audit trail is broad, it may never be possible to isolate the true cause, and therefore to take remedial action.

An appropriate Package Coding Management System can provide the simple means to achieve this control.

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