Capability · for QA head, owner
A record is only worth what it is worth under challenge
Any system can store a number. The question an auditor or a customer's lawyer asks is whether that number could have been changed afterwards, and whether you can show it was not.
Append-only, enforced by the database
Measurements, events, genealogy links, marks, test results and scrap records cannot be updated or deleted. That is enforced by database triggers as well as by application code, so it holds even for someone with a SQL prompt and a bad idea.
Hash chained per unit
Each evidence row carries the hash of the one before it, forming a chain per unit across both evidence tables. Altering a historical row breaks every link after it, and the chain can be verified on demand.
Corrections supersede, they never overwrite
When a reading was genuinely wrong, the fix is a new row pointing at the one it replaces, carrying a reason and the operator who made the call. The original stays visible. An auditor seeing corrections handled this way trusts the rest of the record more, not less.
The raw bytes are kept
Every device payload is stored verbatim beside the parsed value. When a customer disputes a reading two years later, the answer is what the instrument actually said, not what software decided it meant.
Both clocks, and the skew between them
Every row records device time and server time. When they disagree beyond the configured threshold the row is flagged rather than dropped, because a drifting clock on a panel PC corrupts traceability in a way that is very hard to spot afterwards.
Book a 20-minute line walkthrough
We walk one line, list what each operation should capture, and tell you plainly which of your machines can be read. You get that list whether or not you buy anything.
Where this matters
- Auto components and Tier 1/2Your OEM customer can ask for the build record of a single part number from eight months ago and expects it the same week. Trace keeps that record per unit, in a form that holds up when it is challenged.
- What an IATF 16949 auditor actually asks for on traceabilityThe traceability evidence an IATF 16949 auditor asks a supplier to produce, why batch records usually fail, and what a per-unit record has to contain.
- Recall and forward traceGive Trace a component lot code and it returns every finished unit that consumed it, where each one went, and when. An indexed lookup, not an overnight report.