Traceability as a powerful management tool

From March of this year, our life changed completely and something new that we had little discuss became normal in the news: the search for "patient zero". What's that supposed to mean? "Patient zero" is the first person infected with a viral or bacterial disease, because identifying it helps us understand how the virus or bacteria spread in the world or in a country.
To illustrate the importance of traceability and how in this pandemic time does not pass, March already seems a long time in our memory, now in June we already have an app launched by SAP in Germany, called Corona-Warn-App.
It was created in partnership with Google and Apple and issues warnings if one of the people who has downloaded is contaminated and close to you. Do you know how many downloads have been made? About 6.5 million in 24 hours.
These examples show that, with coronavirus, the traceability theme began to occupy a prominent role. For the average citizen, it was clear the importance of understanding the origin of certain problems so that it is possible to design combat strategies and action plans. Just as traceability is welcome in coping with health crises, it also plays a major role in the food industry.
Food safety is a priority for any manufacturer operating in this industry.
Throughout its production cycle, a food can go through a few dozen steps between processing and filling, some 100% automated and others that have the participation of operators. In the case of failures, tracking tools serve as allies of manufacturers, assisting in solving the problem quickly and assertively as soon as it is identified.
As a positive collateral impact, traceability also contributes to increasing the safety of produced food. By tracking a problem back to its origin, manufacturers develop an expanded look at their production chain, being able to create protocols and mechanisms that prevent the same problem from happening again in the future.
Currently, industry-installed processing and filling machines can be connected in a single virtual environment, facilitating production performance analysis and reporting, as well as traceability of specific batches.
From the arrival of the raw material to the sending of manufactured products to distribution centers, all processes carried out in the industry can be monitored and stored on servers, creating a complete history of production.
The use of traceability in the food industry is especially interesting to identify failures still at an early stage, so that it is possible to take proactive and corrective actions that avoid the continuity of the problem.
By identifying failures in the process and taking action in advance, the industry mitigates financial impacts caused by the loss of production and avoids reputational crises if inappropriate products reach the market – it should be noted that, in this case, the image crisis can lead to simply incalculable financial losses.
Although the benefits of traceability are more easily translated for managers working in the industry, it is a fact that the consumer also has much to gain from the moment he knows the processes that a product went through before it gets to his hands.
A change that was already gaining shape and that was accelerated by the pandemic was precisely the transparency about the path taken by a product in its manufacturing process.
For example, when scanning a printed code on one side of the package, the consumer can receive on his mobile phone information such as name and location of raw material suppliers, detailing of all ingredients used in its composition, processing model applied to its production. By doing so, the manufacturer adds a layer of transparency that the consumer has demanded and valued, putting in a better position the brands that move in this direction.
Generally speaking, traceability should not be seen solely as a quality control and production tool, but as a powerful management confidence tool for the industry – with the benefit of also bringing gains to the model of communication between brands and consumers.
Just as traceability has proved important for the face of the health crisis caused by the new coronavirus, it is also fundamental for the operation of food and beverage manufacturers.
Edison Kubo