Batch & Lot Traceability Log

What this tool does

CM8-83 links the material you take in to the product you send out. One record per movement — a receipt, a production run, a despatch — each carrying the batch references that connect it to the records either side. When something goes wrong you can then answer, in minutes rather than days, which finished batches contain a suspect ingredient and which customers received them.

Everything runs inside this one file. There is no account, no upload and no network request, so supplier names, customer names and batch numbers never leave the computer you are using.

The two questions

Traceability is not paperwork for its own sake. It exists to answer two questions under pressure:

• Backwards: this finished batch is suspect — what went into it, and where did that come from?
• Forwards: this incoming batch is suspect — what did we make with it, and who has it now?

Both are answered by the same thing: the list of input batches on each record. Everything else in the tool is supporting detail.

What counts as a batch

A batch or lot is the largest quantity you are willing to throw away together. If you cannot separate Tuesday's production from Wednesday's, they are one batch and a problem on either day takes both. Smaller batches mean tighter recalls and more record keeping; larger batches mean less work now and a much wider recall later. That is the trade-off, and it is yours to make.

Give every batch a reference you will not reuse. A date-based reference works well because it sorts and cannot repeat. Whatever you choose, write it identically everywhere: the search that scopes a recall is a plain text match, so RM 6101 and RM-6101 are two different batches as far as this tool is concerned.

Recording goods in

Set the direction to goods in, give the delivery your own batch reference, and — this is the part that matters — copy the supplier batch reference exactly as it appears on the label or the paperwork. On a receipt that reference is the entire link back up the chain. Without it you can name the supplier but not the lot, and the supplier cannot tell you what else was affected.

Split a delivery into separate records if it arrived as more than one supplier lot: one record covering two lots means a problem with either one contaminates both in your log.

Recording a production run

Set the direction to production, give the run its own batch reference, and list every input batch you consumed in the input batches box — references and quantities, comma separated. Include packaging, because a print or barrier fault is recalled the same way an ingredient is.

Put the output in quantity produced and leave the received-or-despatched quantity blank; the tool refuses the other way round and never adds the two together. That rule exists so that no chart in this tool ever mixes what you took in with what you made out of it.

Recording goods out

Set the direction to goods out, use your despatch or delivery note number as the reference, name the customer, and list the finished batches on that despatch in the input batches box. A mixed pallet gets both references. That single line is what turns "we think it went to three customers" into a list you can act on.

Scoping a recall

The search filter is how a recall is scoped. Type a batch reference into the Search box and every record that mentions it anywhere — the receipt itself, the runs that consumed it, the despatches that carried it — appears in the register, the tiles and the charts.

The recall trace table then goes one step further. It takes the batch references in whatever the filter is showing, follows the input-batch links outwards through as many steps as it takes, and lists every despatch that ends up connected: date, reference, product, customer, order and quantity. Search a raw material lot and you get the customers who received it, even though the despatch records never mention that lot by name.

Two things to know about that table. It searches all your records, not just the ones inside the current date filter, because a recall must not stop at an arbitrary date. And it matches on text, so it finds what you actually typed — if a reference was recorded loosely in one record it will not be found from another.

Where the chain breaks

The whole value of this log is in the links, so the tool counts the records that have none and puts the number on a tile of its own:

• A goods-in record with no supplier batch reference. You cannot go up the chain.
• A production record with no input batches. You cannot say what went in, so a problem with any ingredient means every run of that period is suspect.
• A goods-out record with no input batches. You know a customer received something, but not which batch.

One unlinked record does not just lose that record. It breaks every trace that would have run through it, which is why the count is a headline figure rather than a footnote. Treat anything above zero as work to do.

Expiry, shelf life and the warning window

Record the production or packing date and the expiry or best-before date and the tool derives the rest. The expiry warning window in Settings decides what counts as expiring soon — thirty days suits a short-life product, ninety suits a warehouse of dry goods.

The default shelf life setting is only ever a suggestion. When you enter a production date and no expiry, the preview line shows the date your default shelf life would give. Nothing is filled in for you: an expiry date that the tool invented is worse than no expiry date at all.

Release and holds

Tick quality released when a batch is cleared to use, sell or despatch, and record who released it. A batch released with nobody named is flagged, because "released" with no name is not a release — it is an assumption, and it is exactly what an auditor asks about.

A hold needs a reason, and the tool insists on one: anybody finding a quarantined pallet has to know what it is waiting for. A batch cannot be both released and on hold. By default the tool also refuses to save a despatch of a batch that has not been released; if your process genuinely allows it, turn that off in Settings, deliberately.

The disposition is the current decision on the batch — released, on hold, rejected, recalled or destroyed. Set it to recalled when stock has been retrieved after despatch, so the record shows what happened rather than being deleted. Never delete a record because the news in it is bad.

Every figure, in full

Nothing here is complicated, and all of it is stated so you can check it:

Days are whole calendar days, not working days. A batch whose expiry is today is not yet expired.

Units

Every quantity carries a unit, and the tool never adds different ones together. Where a total is shown it is taken from the unit used by the most records in the current filter, and anything measured differently is excluded and counted separately in the tile description. If you keep mixed units — kilograms of material and pouches of packaging, say — use the unit filter before reading any total.

Convert as you enter rather than mixing within one material: 500 g recorded as 0.5 kg totals correctly, recorded as 500 g does not.

Printing and sharing

Print Report produces a report from whatever the current filter shows: header, the six headline figures, the four charts, the recall trace, the expiry watch, the full register and your closing notes. Print to PDF and you have a dated recall pack you can send to a customer or an auditor.

The scope line under the title states the filter in force, including the search term. That is deliberate: a recall pack should say on its face which batch it was scoped to.

Saving your work

Records, settings and the report header are written to this browser's local storage as you type, and the toolbar shows the time of the last save. That storage belongs to one browser on one computer: another browser, a private window, a second machine or a clean-up tool that clears site data will not have it.

Treat Export .json as the real save — one file containing everything, which Import .json restores anywhere. Export CSV gives you the register for spreadsheet work and includes every filtered record, not only those drawn on screen. Reset asks twice, then erases everything this tool has stored. There is no undo.

Traceability records are usually kept for the life of the product plus a margin, and sometimes far longer. Export a dated backup on a schedule and keep it somewhere that survives the loss of this machine.

Accuracy & disclaimer

This is a record you keep, not a food safety or pharmaceutical management system. It does not verify anything, check a supplier, test a product, notify anybody or release stock. A batch is released here because somebody ticked a box, and a link exists because somebody typed a reference.

Regulated sectors have specific requirements for traceability records, retention periods, recall procedures, allergen and contaminant controls and who may authorise a release. Those requirements differ by country and by product, and this tool does not attempt to meet any of them. Establish what applies to you, keep whatever else it demands, and use this as the working log alongside it — not as the system of record for compliance purposes.