The paper was presented at the Polish Logistics Congress Logistics 2008 – “New challenges – new solutions”, Poznań, May 7-9, 2008.
The key to improving a product’s competitive advantage in the market is to improve the ability to create value that customers are willing and able to pay for, especially when product safety and quality are at stake. Cases of food poisoning appearing among products on the market, tragic mistakes in medicine packaging, or malfunctioning devices threatening the lives of people and animals have caused both end consumers and partners in the supply chain to pay increasing attention to product safety and quality assurance throughout the entire supply chain. Responsibility to the customer requires that in the event of a threat or any irregularity, the product should be withdrawn from the market and from all intermediaries in the supply chain as quickly as possible. The task becomes complicated and takes on particular significance when we analyze European or global supply chains – different quality and safety systems in both production and intermodal transport, different management and work organization cultures, product identification standards (packaging, logistics units), technological solutions, and information exchange standards used by manufacturers and their suppliers, carriers, and logistics operators.
Building the brand of a “safe product” and the trust of customers and partners in the supply chain has sparked a turbulent search for methods and tools enabling the systematic localization and tracking of products throughout the full supply chain (traceability) and immediate response in case of detected irregularities and product withdrawal from all locations on the market.
A sense of security is one of the fundamental values, and the key to achieving this value has become a system for tracking the flow path of a product as well as the conditions for the realization of this flow in the full supply chain. Enterprises quickly noticed that the guarantee of product safety and quality and its tracking throughout the entire supply chain (in procurement, production, transport, warehousing, distribution, and sales networks) can be effectively used to build a competitive advantage, and that the costs and investment outlays for a traceability system can be turned into market success. Tracking the origin of food products also stems from the need to adapt the company’s operations to the requirements of EU Food Law in force since January 1, 2005.
The article presents comprehensive assumptions for building a traceability system for food products within the Traceback project. The requirements for product tracking in intermodal supply chains have been expanded – in accordance with the project’s assumptions – to include safety requirements and quality standards in procurement, production, distribution, and sales processes. The requirements for the certification process for compliance with traceability requirements and the requirements for the organization and flow of data for crisis management purposes are presented.
Full article in PDF format.