Batch codes and tracing a faulty product run
How a manufacturer traces which customers received a faulty batch, what product barcodes can carry, and what Achekam holds today for a recall.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Manufacturing businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
The call usually comes from quality control on a Friday afternoon. A seal on the filling line was faulty for part of Tuesday's shift, and some of the product from that run may be contaminated. The question that follows is simple to ask and hard to answer: which customers received it?
A manufacturer that can answer in an hour recalls a few pallets from a few customers. One that cannot answer recalls everything it made that week, from everyone, and spends the following month explaining why. The difference is almost never the size of the business. It is whether the batch or lot code was captured at each step between the line and the customer.
What a barcode can carry
GS1, the global standards body behind retail barcodes, explains that barcodes encode key identifiers such as product, shipment and location, and key attributes such as serial numbers, batch or lot numbers and dates. That second group is what matters in a recall. A barcode that identifies only the product tells you what was sold. One that also carries the batch and a production or expiry date tells you which run it came from.
GS1 also states that barcodes let parties such as retailers, manufacturers, transport providers and hospitals automatically identify and track products as they move through the supply chain. In a recall, that tracking is what lets a retailer pull only the affected units from its shelves rather than an entire product line.
More data in less space
Fitting a product code, a batch number and a date onto a small pack can be a problem with a traditional barcode. GS1 explains that 2D barcodes use patterns of squares, hexagons, dots and other shapes, so they can hold more data than 1D barcodes while appearing physically smaller. For a small sachet, a vial or a component, that can be the difference between carrying the batch in the barcode and printing it as text nobody scans.
The rulebook
GS1 describes its General Specifications as the core standards document of the GS1 system, describing how GS1 barcodes and identification keys should be used. Whoever designs your packaging or programmes your labelling equipment should work from it, so that the batch and date are encoded in a way your customers' scanners will read.
Following a batch from line to customer
Traceability is a chain, and every link has to record the batch:
| Step | What must be recorded |
|---|---|
| Production | Which batch was made, when, on which line, from which raw material lots |
| Packing | Which cartons and pallets hold which batch |
| Warehouse | Where each batch is stored |
| Dispatch | Which orders and waybills carried which batch |
| Customer | Which of their deliveries contained it |
A gap anywhere breaks the chain. The most common gap is at dispatch: the picker takes whatever cartons are nearest, and the waybill records the product but not the batch.
What Achekam holds today, and what it does not
It is worth being clear about where Achekam helps and where your traceability has to sit elsewhere.
What it holds. The Item Master in the Accounting menu lists and creates products on the server with SKU, name, category, selling and cost price, opening quantity and VAT treatment; it needs the Point of Sale, Warehousing or Wholesale add-on. With the Warehousing add-on, a business keeps stock locations such as warehouses, stores, bins and vans, with the quantity on hand at each. With the Wholesale add-on, it keeps trade customers, confirms and dispatches their orders and prints a waybill for each.
What it does not hold. None of the Item Master fields above is a batch or lot number, and no screen lets a business record a product's barcode at all; a scanner at the till finds a product only when the scanned code matches its SKU. Achekam therefore cannot tell you, by itself, which batch went on which waybill.
How to bridge the gap. Keep a batch dispatch log outside the system, in whatever form your plant already uses, and record against each batch the Achekam order and waybill numbers it went out on. The order and waybill numbers are the link: once you know them, the customer, the delivery and the invoice are all in Achekam.
A recall drill you can run this month
Do not wait for a real fault to find out whether your chain holds. Pick a batch made a few weeks ago and try to trace it:
- From the production record, find the batch number, date and quantity made.
- From the warehouse, find where the batch was stored and what remains on hand at each location.
- From the dispatch log, list the orders and waybills that carried it.
- From Achekam, open each order to find the trade customer, the delivery and the invoice.
- Check that the quantities add up: made, still on hand and dispatched.
- Time how long it took, and note every point where someone had to guess.
Whatever you had to guess is the first thing to fix. If the drill shows that pickers do not record batches, start there; if the waybill has no space for it, add a batch column to the dispatch log against each waybill number.
When the recall is real
Once the affected customers are known, the money side follows. Goods returned by dealers need credit notes against the original invoices; handling dealer returns and credit notes covers that. In South Africa, the legal exposure for a defective product sits under the Consumer Protection Act; product liability under the CPA explains what it says.
Start with the barcode
GS1's overview of its barcodes explains what each barcode type encodes, including batch, serial number and dates, and how barcodes are used across the supply chain. Read it with your packaging supplier, then run the recall drill above on last month's busiest product.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
