Part Traceability Needs to be Taken Seriously

I was on a standards writing committee call two weeks ago discussing part traceability with customers on the committee.

I wanted them to accept this requirement in the standard “c. Maintain inventory control of received parts sufficient to have positive traceability as to the supplier of the parts. Parts from different suppliers will not be co-mingled.”

The thinking here is that by having this traceability, customers will know whose product is giving them problems.

I was amazed by the response.

The consensus of the customers on the committee was that this would be very costly and that most customers would not have this traceability. They indicated it would be a major change to their systems.

Scary stuff.

Customers (primes in this case) told me they don’t trace components in their systems. Basically, they said, they receive it and once deemed good, it goes into the bin with the other parts.

This would explain why Mouser receives returns of products sold by other sources.