Traceability is a term that was recently incorporated into the twenty-third edition of the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). For the International Organization for Standardization (whose acronym is ISO), traceability is the property that provides the result of a standard value, which can be linked to specific references through a continuous sequence of comparisons.
In other words, traceability is made up of predetermined processes that are carried out to determine the different stages a product goes through, from its birth to its current location in the supply chain. Specifically, when studying and establishing the traceability of a product, it is essential to identify three basic aspects of it, such as the origin of its different components, the set of processes that were applied to them and also both the distribution and The ubication. of the product in question after its delivery.
It is possible to distinguish two types of traceability when seeking to know the status of a product that circulates in a logistics chain. Internal traceability acts on the internal procedures of the company and takes into account the composition of the product, its handling, the machines used and other factors. External traceability, in turn, adds other elements to externalize the information derived from internal traceability. In short, traceability is based on recording the traces left by a product as it passes through the chain before reaching the final consumer. We are currently working on the development of a standard format that allows traceability to be easily shared and disseminated. The intention is to develop the ability to review the trajectory and the path traveled by each product, which would allow us to know where its components come from, what treatments are applied and how the distribution is specified. This, in turn, would improve the quality of the product and increase the value for the final consumer. In this sense, it is essential to publicize the existence of a very useful and practical element to establish the traceability of a product in question. This is the case of the well-known barcode. The reference is apparently a set of straight, vertical and parallel lines that represent certain information about that product, which allow it to be classified and which also incorporates a series of numbers that also provide information about it. All this information provided by the lines and numbers is encrypted, so it is necessary and essential to have a device, called a reader or receiver, which is responsible for decoding it and making the data related to the product available. In this way, we can establish that we find technological devices of this type in countless places that have become commonplace in our routine, such as supermarkets or ATMs. In the case of the former, what they do is read the codes that appear on different types of food products and, in the latter, decode credit or bank card codes.
The technology, with the combination of communication networks, the Web, wireless connectivity, satellite tracking and specialized software, helps improve traceability.
