Implementation checklist

A checklist for one product family, one facility, and one reason to trace. Work through it in order, and keep the record it produces.

1. Define the unit of trace: product type, lot, batch, serial item, or logistics unit.
2. Agree identifiers, and make sure they stay unique across suppliers and sites.
3. Name the events to be recorded: receipt, transformation, handover, and dispatch.
4. Assign responsibility for each event, and for confirming each handover.
5. Agree supplier data: identifiers, events, evidence, format, and timing, before the first shipment.
6. Build the genealogy record inside the plant, including rework, splits, and merges.
7. Set governance: ownership, completeness checks, corrections, retention, and access.
8. Run a mock trace backward and forward, and fix every gap it finds.
9. Map suppliers and facilities, and check the map against the record, not against a list alone.
10. Review the record when the product, the supplier, the facility, or the applicable framework changes.

This checklist is general information only. It does not promise market access, import clearance, or a clean audit, and it does not replace the official sources for any framework that applies to your product.