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aberon TRACE CONTROL

  • INTRODUCTION

  • PROCESSES

  • OBJECTIVES

  • MAIN FUNCTIONS

  • REGULATION 178/2002


“Traceability” is the capacity to monitor a product during the production, processing and transfer phases.
OPTIMUM's Traceability Management Information System aberon TRACE CONTROL has been developed to cover the requirement of Traceability in Production, in accordance with the European Regulation no. 178/2002 and, more specifically, the requirement of:
aberonTRACE• Ensuring traceability of each food product, feedstuff, animal or substance used in production
• Ensuring knowledge about any supplier of Raw Materials and substances used in production
• Ensuring that the information about which products have been sent to which client is correct and readily available
• Identifying and marking the products in a way that facilitates their traceability
The Traceability Management Information System aberon TRACE CONTROL covers the recording and monitoring of raw materials, production phases and production equipment used in all phases of the food production process.

More specifically, aberon TRACE CONTROL monitors and records:
1) The raw material lots that have been used for producing a specific final product lot.
2) The final product lots that have used a specific Raw Material lot.
3) Information about any intermediate material upwards (Raw Materials) and downwards (Final Products).

The whole recording process is performed using barcode technology both for marking raw materials and for marking the equipment used to produce food.
The philosophy of aberon TRACE CONTROL is based on the recording of the production processes in an easy and friendly way, via wireless terminals and via work stations (PCs) installed in the plant's production spaces.

aberonTrace Diagram1
In the system parametrization phase, the production equipment (e.g. mixers, ovens, machines, fillers, seamers etc.) and the intermediate storage systems (e.g. tanks, containers, silos, etc.) are recorded in the system.
Aberon TRACE CONTROL is a flexible Information System that can be easily adapted to the needs of each production process, from the simplest to the most complicated one.
Trace diagram2

The objectives of the aberon TRACE CONTROL Information System are:
• The direct and correct information in critical cases, in order to promptly receive appropriate measures.
• The restriction of the time required for recognizing, identifying and isolating potential risks due to a defective lot.
• Marking the products by implementing the international standard UCC/EAN 128 that contributes to the proper management of supplies for the production department.
• Differentiation of food products having special composition and production properties.
The advantages of aberon TRACE CONTROL are :
• The simplicity in its use.
• The absence of needless information.
• Its technological adequacy.

The main functions of aberon TRACE CONTROL are :

A) Creation (opening) of current process
The creation of a current process is made on a specific machine or intermediate storage system (buffer). The main features of a process are:
• Machine or storage system which the process refers to
• Specific process ID
• Process opening date and time
• Process status (current, closed)

Β) Process Closing
The closing of a process is performed by the operators, upon completion of the batch and, if we want to open a new process on the specific machine. During process closing, the system updates the closing date and time of the previous process.

C) Addition of Raw Material or interim phase material
With this function, the operator 'binds' to the current process of a machine or a storage system, the raw materials used and the interim phase materials used to produce the semi- final (output) of that phase.

D) Reporting
Based on the above functions, the digital processing tree is created, from which we can draw all necessary information regarding traceability of the production process.
Indicatively, we mention:
• List of the raw materials and lots that have been used for producing a specific final product lot.
• Given a Raw Material and a lot, the System provides us with the final products and their lots that have used the specific Raw Material.
• Information about any intermediate material upwards (Raw Materials) and downwards (Final Products)

The example in the following scheme presents the plan of the above procedure.
aberon Trace example
Aberon TRACE CONTROL fully covers the requirements of the European Regulation no. 178/2002, which are:
• Every link of the supply chain must know, via electronic means and at real time, all necessary information about any phase of production and transfer of each food product.
• All information, such as : What have I been supplied with and from whom (a step backwards), as well as what I have sold and to whom (a step forward), must be readily available to the competent auditing authorities, when requested.
In this point, aberon TRACE CONTROL comes to function complementarily to the Warehouse Management Information System aberon WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM developed by OPTIMUM, which manages the final products' traceability.