Focus on traceability in the manufacturing, fabrication and construction sectors has increased significantly over the last number of years. Not having proper traceability on materials presents numerous risks:

• Increased costs associated with defective materials
• Schedule delays due to quality issues discovered at the project site
• Potential operating safety risks with using counterfeit or incorrect materials

Furthermore, compliance with regulatory or quality program requirements typically demands that the end-user maintain traceability on material from the source of the raw materials, to the manufacturing stage through to construction and to the final installation location in the facility. These documents can include heat numbers, mill test reports, lot control numbers, serial numbers, registration numbers, shelf life, certificates of conformity, material safety data sheets, test reports and various others depending on the material type.

These traceability requirements can pose many challenges, and for most companies, this involves the management of hordes of paperwork that the construction contractor turns over to the facility operator at the end of the project. In the event specific documents are required due to an audit, incident or quality issue, countless hours of research and mining are spent searching for the relevant documentation.

Proper work processes for receipt, issue and record keeping of materials are essential to the success of this type of program. However, many companies rely on manual processes for recording and filing documentation that are prone to error or lead to incomplete records.

SiteSense® brings the capability to maintain the data integrity all while simplifying this labor-intensive
process by completing it electronically. Records are created and maintained by assigning each piece of
material a barcode or RFID tag and electronically attaching the relevant data at the time of receipt. Then using barcode or RFID technology, traceability can be maintained without the need to constantly search for and copy documents at each stage of construction or during the fabrication process. To review the
documentation, workers simply scan the barcode or RFID tag attached to the materials using a mobile device to review the associated documentation.

Traceability is maintained throughout the SiteSense® system from receipt of the material at the project site through to being issued to the construction work front. If a turnover Quality Control (QC) package needs to be created for the client, the documentation can be easily compiled and downloaded from the SiteSense® system. Sometimes there can be very stringent requirements to turn over a copy of all certifying documentation for the associated work package when the material is issued to construction, for fabrication or installation. With SiteSense® this is automatic, as each barcode or RFID Tag is scanned as part of the picking process, the certification documentation is electronically available to the requesting party for each individual item.

With SiteSense® the need to maintain filing cabinets full of documents is a thing of the past. Records of all collected Documentation are maintained safely in the cloud-hosted Web and Mobile software. The risk of losing documentation is minimized and in some cases completely eliminated. SiteSense also provides powerful search capability and traceability of the material throughout its life-cycle to give construction teams the information they need in the field at their fingertips.