Inventory Tracking vs Materials Traceability

Tracking materials using conventional inventory tracking, warehouse management, and ERP systems is becoming increasingly problematic due to rapidly increasing requirements for supply-chain data exchange, especially in the area of materials traceability.

This has resulted in an "explosion" of work-arounds using paper forms, Excel spreadsheets, and manual data entry into computers, which can cost large amounts of money in labor costs and can be the cause of many operational mistakes.

This white paper looks at the complexities of tracking inventory, with a focus on manufacturers, industrial distributors, defense contractors, and other industrial, food, pharmaceutical, and medical organizations that need materials traceability.

It recommends replacing the traditional tracking of inventory by location with the adoption of "license-plate" container tracking principles, such as those described in the GS1 standard for global supply chain tracking, and is also as used by Fedex and UPS for package delivery.

To download a PDF of the white paper, please click on:

"Inventory Tracking vs Materials Traceability" .