In serving customers, there are businesses both with and without a production system. A business without a production system focuses on customer service work. A business with a production system produces goods for the market, to be sold to consumers.

Many of the products sold to consumers are products that may affect physical health, something consumers care about very much in this era.

Manufacturers themselves are liable to receive customer complaints. If a complaint arises directly from a manufacturer’s own error, that is something to be fixed and improved.

If it’s not an error arising from the manufacturer’s production, but the customer or consumer has raised a complaint, what should the manufacturer or organisation do to prove to the customer that the error came from another source?

For example, a ready-to-eat food business with an export-standard production process is complained about by a customer that the food was contaminated with something undesirable.

The problem falls to the business owner: how can they prove, to give the customer confidence, that what contaminated the food did not come from the manufacturer’s production process but from another source?

And the manufacturer’s own factory produces a large quantity of goods for sale — how can they check or verify which lot, among those the manufacturer put on sale, the complained-about product came from?

The tool that helps a manufacturer trace all data retrospectively is the “ERP system,” especially for high-volume production.

Using an ERP system as a tool makes retrospective data tracing even easier and faster.

An ERP system helps the manufacturer’s organisation track and clearly identify where each piece of raw material used in production came from, who produced the goods, and what their quality is. It also helps check compliance with the defined production requirements and standards.

An ERP system stores data in each of the following parts:

1. Data management

An ERP system helps manage all of the organisation’s data, including production-related data such as the various raw materials used in production, the source of the raw materials, the production formula, and related data on the production process.

2. Raw-material tracking

An ERP system helps track the receipt of raw materials used in production, specifying the source the raw material came from, the quantity received, and the date received, so as to comply with the defined requirements and standards.

3. Creating production orders

An ERP system helps create production orders automatically, based on customer demand or the receipt of raw materials. The system gathers data about the goods to be produced, the time they must be produced, and the raw materials required.

4. Tracking the production process

An ERP system helps track the production process of goods, from receiving raw materials to the finished product, so as to know the current status of production.

5. Recording production data

An ERP system helps record data about production, such as measuring product quantity, product quality, and production duration, so that it can be tracked and checked easily.

6. Tracking delivery

An ERP system helps track the delivery of products or goods to customers, including delivery data such as the shipping date and other shipping information.

7. Quality inspection

An ERP system helps inspect product quality by gathering data about testing and quality inspection, to ensure products match the defined standards.

So for a manufacturer’s organisation that has a production system and needs to record data to keep for checking in various cases, such as when there’s a customer complaint, implementing an ERP system to help manage the manufacturer’s organisation is an efficient tool that — besides helping manage the manufacturer’s organisation — also helps the organisation truthfully check various data, for the benefit of both the manufacturer’s organisation and consumers.

The benefits of retrospective data tracing with an ERP system