Traceability is the real problem in automotive supply
For a company supplying parts upstream, the hard part is rarely production. It is documentation. When a complaint arrives, you have hours rather than days to show which material batch the part came from, which machine and shift processed it, which measurements passed it and where it shipped.
Kept in spreadsheets, that record fails twice. First on accuracy, because data is entered by hand, late, and sometimes not at all. Second on defensibility, because in an audit it is not enough to have a record; you need to show when it was created and by whom.
In the systems we build, a batch number opens at goods-in and travels with the part. Measurements, scrap reasons and dispatch records attach to that same number, so answering a customer query becomes a single search rather than an afternoon of cross-checking.
There is a commercial side too. A supplier who can demonstrate traceability moves ahead of one who cannot, both in audits and when new parts are being placed.
