Who are the key players in traceability?

Ensuring traceability through the supply chain requires a commitment and action from all operators in the supply chain: from suppliers of raw material and packaging to manufacturers, carriers, logistic providers and retailers, whatever the size and country. Consequently, traceability systems should be user friendly, leveraging on existing industry systems and interoperable to enable full chain traceability. 

Governments' clear objectives and guidelines can help provide a common framework. Quality managers usually play a great role in ensuring effective traceability within their organization while logistics managers, logistics providers and transporters need to possess a good data tracking system to locate products as they move. 

Experienced and well-trained traceability auditors are important in conducting assessments to determine that the traceability system used is reliable and effective. In addition, solution providers are important to support implementation of such systems, making sure hardware and software uses standards to support interoperability. It is important that each key player understand their role in the supply chain to ensure end to end traceability.