Page 87 - Conveniece World Magazine Nov/Dec 2020

• Improved cross-border/market access and biosecurity. • Over the next 12 months, NGTAG plans to lead the future of transformation and innovation for Australian traceability, including communicating, educating and co- defining a strategic master plan for implementing end-to-end supply chain visibility for Australian trade. Share and share alike Clearly, traceability has become a vital supply chain function. It minimises supply chain disruption, avoids the cost of removing and disposing of unaffected stock, and protects the reputations of businesses and brands. When food safety issues are identified, an effective traceability system enables the rapid identification of affected products so corrective action can be taken. This not only avoids the risk of damaged or contaminated products continuing downstream to consumers, but, if necessary, enables accurately targeted product recalls. However, traceability is complex, requiring a business to track every event impacting every product moving through its supply chain. Starting with the initial source and continuing through processing, manufacture, storage and distribution to the retailer, events are recorded based on the following: • Who is actioning the event? • What products are impacted? • When did this time-stamped event occur? • Where was the product and where is it now? • Why was this observed and at which step? When traceability is effective, all movements can be traced one step backwards and one step forward from any given point in the supply chain. According to Food Standards Australia New Zealand, this “enables corrective actions (such as a product recall) to be implemented quickly and effectively when something goes wrong. When a potential food safety problem is identified, whether by a food business or a government agency, an effective traceability system can help isolate and prevent contaminated products from reaching consumers”. While traceability is undoubtedly important, there are challenges be overcome before optimum supply chain traceability becomes a reality. To learn more about those challenges, Retail World spoke to GS1 Chief Customer Officer Marcel Sieira. “From my perspective, the biggest issue with traceability isn’t the technology, or the systems, or what happens in the supply chain,” he said. “The issue is a lack of interoperability, and it’s one of the primary reasons for forming this group. “At the moment, a lot of industry sectors and organisations are looking to put in place traceability systems. However, the conversation around the foundational data standards those systems should be using isn’t being given the attention it deserves. “If you’re looking at implementing end-to-end traceability in a supply chain, and not just traceability within your own business, you’ll invariably need to capture, store and share traceability data across different participants in that supply chain. “That sharing needs to include different customers, suppliers and service providers, both domestically and overseas, irrespective of the technology used to capture the information. This level of interoperability can’t be contained within a single industry. If it’s going to be to be effective, it must span different sectors. “For example, a farm in the agricultural sector will develop a traceability system for the food supply chain, but they also supply products into pharmaceutical manufacturing. Ultimately, the farm’s freight data needs to integrate with the transport and logistics providers, so interoperability is required between the traceability systems in agriculture, healthcare, and transport and logistics.” About interoperability To establish an effective traceability system requires every action taken by supply chain partners to be recorded, linking the event to both the input (received from) and the output (going to). If those linkages aren’t made or the data can’t be interpreted by others, there is no interoperability, and traceability is threatened. The importance of interoperability becomes clear when we understand that throughout the supply chain journey, products can be aggregated into larger units and de-aggregated into smaller units. While this is typically done for freight purposes, it’s vital the individual units can be tracked through each event. Consider the example of a grower harvesting tomatoes. They start the journey packed in 200 cartons labelled with a barcode containing the required information. Next, an independent transport company collects the tomatoes, aggregating the 200 cartons into a single pallet it delivers to a wholesaler. On receipt, the wholesaler stores the pallet, but later it’s divided into four shipments of different sizes, ready to be collected by a subcontractor and delivered to separate retailers. “Whatever traceability events physically take place in the supply chain, you have to be able to identify what it is that you’re tracking in that event,” Mr Sieira said. TO PAGE 86 SUPPLY CHAIN & LOGISTICS NOV/DEC 2020 CONVENIENCE WORLD 85