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76 SMT Magazine • September 2016 Levels are roughly defined as follows: • Level 1 "Basic" traceability can be con- sidered an entry level of traceability. This is the minimum level expected for responsible manu- facturing where any degree of traceability is re- quired. It shows the materials used for a work- order of products. Requirements at this level are set such that adoption should not be signif- icantly challenging for a properly managed op- eration, thereby representing a low operation- al cost and a low cost of any change being re- quired. Individual PCBs and materials are not serialized. Assemblies are grouped and identi- fied under production lot/date code/work or- der/batch code, while materials are identified using their part number and incoming order in- formation. As data collection is predominant- ly manual, it is expected that rare omissions of data will occur. Together with the lack of use of unique IDs for materials or PCBs means the value from this Level 1 Traceability is limited in terms of the ability to identify the scope of an issue or to en- sure conformance to operational standards. The storage of traceability data at Level 1 Traceabili- ty may comprise a mix of computerized records and manual record keeping, across different lo- cations/sites. As such, the time required for the use of traceability data for analysis of any issue is high. • Level 2 "Standard" traceability builds on level 1 traceability by adding the unique identification of both materials and assem- blies. This allows the ability to show the materi- als that were available for use during the period each sub-assembly was/is being processed. Ma- terials should gain a unique material ID as ear- ly as possible upon entry to the manufacturing site. Typically, each individual carrier of materi- als obtains a unique ID, such that each individ- ual carrier of materials can then be tracked. For process traceability, the PCB should also receive a unique ID as early in the production pro- cess as possible. Starting with each final prod- uct, all key sub-assemblies, such as PCBs, all the way back through to initial assemblies consist- ing of all raw materials, should have a unique ID assigned, such that a hierarchy of traceabil- ity identified by the final serial number of the shipped product can relate to each of the sub- assemblies within the product. In order to man- age the flow of serialized assemblies, a work-or- der structure should be adopted to define the processes through which sub-assemblies will pass. A selection of key process data is then cap- tured for each product at each process. It is expected that there is an increase in the level of automation of data capture with lev- el 2 traceability, as computerized systems will typically be required to provide the serializa- tion process, manage the database of individual material and product elements and provide the work-order management required. This reduces additional effort of manual data management as well as increases the accuracy and timeliness of data capture. In situations in which data cap- ture is built into the operating procedure, in- creased assurance of compliance with proce- dures can also be achieved, thereby making cost of ownership of level 2 traceability to be bal- anced with operational benefits. The ability of level 2 traceability to limit the scope of product recall and rework is significantly superior to lev- el 1 traceability. • Level 3 "Advanced" traceability is a tightened specification of level 2 traceability, in which more detailed information about pro- cesses and materials are defined and retrained. Level 3 traceability also promotes a higher de- gree of data gathering automation, with an as- sociated decrease in degree of errors and an in- crease in the speed of use. As such, this level 3 traceability brings significant additional value from the quality and assurance perspective to the operation. • Level 4 "Comprehensive" traceability is the highest level of traceability, representing an achievable goal that demonstrates maximum value of traceability in terms of the precise defi- nition of the complete production build record of any product and assembly. In level 4 trace- ability, data for both materials and traceability are collected in precise detail. Material data are precise, with no doubts of where materials are exchanged or replenished during the execution of placement, for example. In level 4 traceabili- ty, process data collects results in a comprehen- sive set of data. In all cases, the intent is that IPC-1782 STANDARD FOR TRACEABILITY SUPPORTING COUNTERFEIT COMPONENT DETECTION