Production and traceability
Know what is on the line, and prove it lot by lot
When a defect or a recall traces back to your line, the question is not whether you can find the answer, it is how fast. Ahearn & Soper equips manufacturing floors with the barcode, RFID and vision technology that turns work in process into a fully traceable record, from raw material to finished, shipped unit.
Où l'argent se perd
A plant carries risk wherever the record of what happened lags behind the thing that happened. Each of the gaps below starts small, at a single station or a single label, and each one is most expensive on the day somebody asks you to prove a lot.
- Work in process tracked on paper or in spreadsheets that lag behind what is happening on the line
- No fast way to trace a lot or serial number back through production if a defect surfaces
- Manual assembly and labelling steps where the wrong part or the wrong label reaches the wrong unit
- Asset and tooling tracking that depends on someone remembering where equipment was last used
- Label and identification hardware that fails in heat, chemicals or washdown environments that standard office grade equipment was never built for
Comment nous y répondons
Ahearn & Soper specifies, integrates, trains and services the whole chain: the software that captures lot and genealogy data, the vision that verifies before a unit moves on, the scan points that keep the record continuous, the hardware and labels rated for your plant, and the error proofing around it. Five parts, one team accountable.
Work in process and traceability integration
Ahearn & Soper deploys and integrates work in process and Manufacturing Execution System software that captures lot, serial and genealogy data at each production stage, so traceability is not a project you start after something has already gone wrong.
Vision validation and verification
Camera based inspection systems confirm the right label, part or component is in the right place before the unit moves to the next station, catching the error on the line instead of at the customer.
RFID and barcode scanning at every stage
From raw material receiving through assembly to finished goods shipping, we build the scan points that keep your traceability record continuous rather than stitched together after the fact.
Rugged hardware for the plant floor
Vehicle mounted and handheld computers, and label materials and adhesives rated for heat, cold, chemical exposure and washdown, specified for your actual production environment rather than a generic office spec.
Error proofing and asset tracking
Systems that flag a mis-scan or a mismatched component in real time, and that keep tooling and equipment accounted for across shifts and departments.
Les produits adaptés à ce travail
These are the printers, scanners and mobile computers we put into Canadian plants most often. Filter by what you are trying to do, or sort the list, and each one is supported by the same team that supplies it.
Honeywell PM45 Industrial Printer
Mid-range industrial printer with WWAN connectivity, built for track and trace at scale.
Honeywell PX45 Industrial Printer
Compact all-metal industrial printer running to 12 ips, with 406 dpi available for dense barcodes.
Honeywell PM65 Industrial Printer
The 6 inch PM. Same engine and remote visibility as the PM45, sized for larger labels and tags.
Honeywell PX65 Industrial Printer
The wide-format PX, same speed and Smart Printer platform, sized for larger labels and tags.
Honeywell PC45D Desktop Printer
Honeywell's flagship desktop platform. Full touchscreen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standard, 2 year warranty.
Honeywell CK65 Ultra-Rugged Handheld Computer
Ultra-rugged keypad and touch computer built to survive 3 m drops and run a full shift on one charge.
Zebra MC9400 and MC9450
Ultra rugged handheld with a 4.3 inch display and Wi-Fi 6E, with 5G data on the MC9450.
Honeywell CW45 Wearable Computer
Arm-worn 4.7 inch computer that keeps both hands free for the carton.
Zebra MC3400 and MC3450
Key based mobile computer with a 4 inch display and Wi-Fi 6E, with 5G data on the MC3450.
Honeywell Granit 1991iSR Scanner
Cordless standard range industrial scanner. The workhorse of the Granit line.
Honeywell CT45 / CT45 XP Mobile Computer
The all-purpose rugged touch computer. The XP adds Wi-Fi 6, a Full HD screen and more memory.
Honeywell ScanPal EDA57 Handheld Computer
The top of the ScanPal line. 5G enterprise handheld for retail, logistics and manufacturing.
Honeywell ScanPal EDA56 Mobile Computer
Wi-Fi 6 value-tier handheld for retail, manufacturing and logistics.
Honeywell ScanPal EDA52 Handheld Computer
The general-purpose EDA52, for retail, logistics, healthcare and manufacturing.
Les étiquettes qui conviennent
The label is the part of the system asked to survive the process itself: heat, chemicals, washdown, abrasion, and a surface that may be oiled or barely take an adhesive at all. Getting the construction right for your conditions is what keeps a code readable after the part has been through the plant.
Plant floor labels divide into three jobs and they need three different constructions. The mistake that costs the most is buying one stock for all three.
Labels that go through a process need a facestock and adhesive rated for what happens to the part: cure ovens, wash cycles, chemical exposure, or abrasion in a fixture. High temperature facestocks exist for exactly this, and the overlaminate is what protects the printed code rather than the label body.
Work in process tags live shorter lives but change hands constantly, and they go onto whatever the part or the carrier presents. Oily metal and low surface energy plastics are the two surfaces where a standard permanent acrylic lets go, and they need an adhesive chosen for the surface rather than for the shelf.
Asset and tooling tags are the long job. They stay in place for years on machinery, often in washdown areas, so they are specified for service life and legibility rather than for throughput.
Où l'identification intervient dans votre journée
A part is identified at six points between the receiving dock and the outbound trailer. The difference from a warehouse is that the part itself changes at several of them, so the identity has to change with it.
Raw material receipt
Incoming material gets its first identity and its lot reference here. Capture it against the supplier record and every downstream link has something to point back to. Skip it and traceability has no starting point, whatever you do later.
Station identification
The part is tagged for the route it is about to take rather than for the shelf it came off. This is where a work in process identity is created for something that has no part number yet.
Work in process
Each move between stations is captured as it happens rather than keyed at end of shift. Without it, a job exists on the floor but the system cannot say what stage it reached or how long it has been sitting there.
Assembly
Components are linked to the parent they went into. This is the step that makes genealogy real, and it is the one most often skipped, because nothing visibly breaks until the day somebody asks what was inside a specific unit.
Verification
Vision or scan verification confirms the right part and the right label before the unit moves on. Catching a mismatch here costs a rework; catching it at the customer costs the account.
Finished goods and dispatch
The finished unit gets the label the customer and the carrier will read. It has to scan for them, not just for you, and it has to still scan after the process that produced it.
Les questions qu'on nous pose le plus
These come up in almost every plant conversation we have. Short answers first, so you can judge quickly whether what you are looking at is a label problem, a capture problem, or a systems problem.
Is GS1 Sunrise 2027 mandatory for manufacturers?
No. Sunrise 2027 is a voluntary target set by GS1, not a law, and there is no regulator behind it and no fine for missing it. What is not voluntary is your trading partners: as retailers and distributors move to 2D codes, a linear laser scanner physically cannot decode one. If your customers move and your hardware cannot follow, that is what sets your timeline, not the date itself.
What makes a label survive heat, chemicals or a washdown cycle?
The combination, not any single layer. The facestock has to hold its dimensions at the temperature for the dwell time, the adhesive has to keep its bond through that same cycle, and the overlaminate protects the printed code from abrasion and chemical exposure. A construction that passes on paper and fails in your plant usually failed on dwell time or on the surface, so an honest answer needs your actual conditions.
How do you identify a part that does not have a part number yet?
You give the job an identity rather than the part. A work in process tag carries a serial or licence plate that travels with the item through stations, and the system holds what that identity currently means. The part number arrives when the part becomes one; until then the tag is what makes the record possible.
Is work in process tracking a WMS job or an MES job?
Station level work in process is an MES job, and it is worth being clear about it. A warehouse management system governs inventory and movement: what came in, where it is, what shipped. A manufacturing execution system governs operations, routing and genealogy at the station. Ahearn & Soper deploys and integrates the MES side and can tell you which of the two your problem actually sits in.
Is RFID worth it on a plant floor, or is this a barcode problem?
It depends on whether anyone has to stop. Barcode is the right answer where parts are handled one at a time and there is line of sight, and it is cheaper per item by a wide margin. RFID earns its place where components move in bulk, sit inside totes or carriers, or pass a fixed point faster than a scan-by-scan process allows.
What does traceability mean when a unit is assembled from six other parts?
It means holding the parent and child links, not just the finished serial. Genealogy is what lets a recall or a warranty claim narrow to the lot that was actually affected instead of everything built that week, and it only works if each component carried an identity that survived to the point of assembly.
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