Parts traceability

Parts traceability is the trail of records from a part’s incoming paperwork to its release certificate. Every shop keeps that trail its own way. This category is about what it looks like once a serialized part is on your bench. We cover the chain a part has to carry. First comes the certificate that arrived with the part, and where you file it. Then comes serial and batch history as you strip the part and build it up again. That includes logging each sub-component against the assembly it went into. We also cover what counts as good proof of origin, and what to do with a part whose papers you cannot verify. Parts traceability has a harder question behind it: what to do when the chain breaks. That runs from quarantine and investigation to scrapping the part rather than saving it. Still, parts traceability only pays off when you can produce it quickly. An auditor will not wait a week for the file. So we write about exporting a full audit trail as much as about capturing one. All of it comes from V1AeroSolutions, an operating wheel and brake shop.