Materials Tracking and Traceability & Work-in-Process Tracking Handbook

Overview

It is easy to plug a barcode scanner into the USB port of a PC and scan a barcode into an Excel spreadsheet. But there is a tremendous gulf in know-how between this simple experiment and implementing a fully functional materials tracking and traceability or work-in-process tracking system.

This handbook was written to enable mangers and staff of industrial organizations to educate themselves about how to implement materials tracking and traceability systems, with a special emphasis on the needs of operations managers and IT people, who are often tasked with implementing these systems.

This handbook gives an overview of the principles, methods and technology used in tracking and tracing materials in the industrial, medical, food, and construction supply chains. It also provides an introduction to the standards that need to be followed as well as the tradeoffs involved.

This handbook covers topics ranging from barcode and RFID scanners, and how they work, through different ways of doing work-in-process and materials tracking, to how to run an implementation project. It finishes with a chapter on the future and the use of Artificial Intelligence in managing manufacturing and other industrial operations.

This handbook is based on the know-how, about what-not-to-do, as well as what-to-do, accumulated by Dr. Peter Green in over two decades of assisting clients implement over 100 materials tracking and traceability and work-in-process tracking systems.

Author

This handbook was written by Dr. Peter Green, who currently serves as the Technical Director of KnarrTek Inc. Dr. Green obtained his BSEE and Ph.D. Degrees from Leeds University in England. Subsequently Dr. Green was a senior member of technical staff at MIT and a Professor of Computer Engineering at WPI. Dr. Green is an expert in materials tracking and traceability within the industrial, medical, and construction supply chains. He is also an expert in using real-time Artificial Intelligence to assist mangers with operational decision-making in industrial organizations.

Please click here to Download a PDF Version of the Track and Trace Handbook