With all the commotion in today’s world it is rare that we pause to think about the basics. Sure, there is a lot to think about, but as I was contemplating just starting out a new day, I did what I normally do – eat a simple breakfast. So, one morning about a month ago I was sitting down to a bowl of cereal (Cheerios to be exact) and I had put in several additional ingredients including cashews, berries, and milk. As I started to munch on my cereal (while probably reading the news) I realized that part of the meal wasn’t ‘munching’ and was too hard to chew on. Then, I removed from my mouth a hard piece of plastic (about the size of a BB). This was a ‘quality escape’ for me!

(The same term was used by the CEO of Boeing when he talked about the Alaskan Airline door of the 737 blowing off – it was referred to as a “Quality Escape”.)

Although the piece of plastic wasn’t going to kill me if ingested, I thought the director of quality should know about this and I immediately endeavored to write them a letter with the suspect piece of polypropylene attached and the Date-code/lot code image on the letter so they could track down the specific line and manufacturing situation.

I started the letter: Good Morning! It wasn’t for me…

And then I proceeded to tell them how I came into contact with this piece of plastic in my mouth and that the cashews and berries and milk typically don’t mingle with plastic in their production lines and so circumstantially I guess, they’d be the most likely candidate to have such a quality escape! It was a polite but factual letter; and I sent it to the General Mills headquarters, director of quality assurance, hoping to get this Lot Code information to the right folks for some follow up (perhaps a 5D or something?).

What I got in response was “a dud”… a nice letter from the Customer Care folks with a form letter and a coupon allowing me to ‘have’ more of their cereal for free. I’m still a little bit put-off by not getting someone to check the process and/or giving me more details as to how they’ll address it so that this doesn’t happen again. That’s what I was hoping for.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has sent back non-edible pieces inside their boxes of cereal. I wish the manufacturers would understand that the more focused they become on quality, these things should reduce to zero over time. Perhaps not. I’m not sure how often ‘quality escapes’ happen in modern industry, but as quality minded folks, some of the best things that you can have are good data. And knowing how drive belts decay or when to replace a production line conveyor (my assumption here) would lead to less particulate or non-edible matter getting into the box of edibles. You would think!

Digital Twins and Traceability

In my world of engineering and manufacturing business systems we’ve heard a lot of hype about how XYZ and ABC systems will solve all of our quality or other cares. The term: Digital Twin has arisen as a way to track stuff from conception all the way through to production, delivery to consumers and then to the dumpster (post-consumer disposal). In some cases the twin can also be part of a simulation process a “What if” scenario wherein the digital twin can showcase when it starts to break down or lose particles into the production line, etc. From what I understand, this is still quite new and no one vendor can solve the digital twin software product idea in one fell swoop. Sure there are a number of tools which address portions of the digital twin, but traceability is something which is critical in certain industries and products, and some of this is still done quite manually today.

I do have a friend who worked in a sausage factory, and he told me that they had gotten their lot codes and traceability down to the factory, production line, the ingredients (he does know what goes into each sausage!) and actually down to the hour and sometimes 15 minute increments of production. That’s very noteworthy and valuable if there ever were a quality escape in that process. They’d need to recall their products and know where these items were shipped, etc. To be sure, this was a high-end sausage factory with a good name brand. There are others who haven’t taken traceability quite as seriously and have suffered as a result whenever they’ve had quality escapes.

These types of tracking requirements aren’t just for process manufacturing enterprises. I know of another manufacturer of high-tech electronic exercise equipment who can track the overall flow of their products from design to manufacturing to distribution to use by each individual customer, etc. They know every time the machine is used at home, and by which user and what type of exercise event is being done (big brother is watching). Luckily this is all anonymized and they haven’t had any major ‘events’ but they’re preparing and ready to track anything/anytime/anywhere. The manufacturer just went live with a tracking application which collects data and allows the user to use a “Time Slider” to see the past history of a specific serial number (unit made) and also go to the present (where the machine is currently located) and even into the future (for predictive maintenance). Since they track a lot of data, they’ve devised ways of pumping this data to the cloud (using “data lakes” and analytical tools for viewing) which give them a significant advantage for tracking and traceability if and when they have a quality escape. So far so good. They’re even able to track how the machine was made at a CM, what brand of manufacturing electronic components were used in the printed circuit board assemblies and many other items of interest. Of particular note, whenever a machine is brought back for repairs, their software engineering team has developed bespoke applications for tracking what components were replaced and by which suppliers, so they can learn which components have a better track record for reliability over time. This company has a complete set of tools to analyze their supply chains, and distribution chains (e.g., Logistics) and find the hot spots today, to prevent any negatives in the future. It is impressive and probably needed for this type of product which can actually hurt someone if things were to break in the middle of a workout.

When to pursue the Digital Twin or Digital Thread?

I don’t believe all products need this level of traceability. Something that can kill or maim you (e.g., aerospace or medical) should certainly have a higher bar than a bowl of cereal or a hotdog… but you’ll have to be the judge of what level of tracking should be used for each application. I do know that this technology is evolving quickly and there are several new applications (many custom) which seem to be heading in the right directions.

The key is to follow these steps:

1. Define the Problem
2. Analyze the potential issues and solution(s)
3. Find someone extremely knowledgeable in solving this type of thing – don’t just rely on the Vendor Hype to venture out into the wilderness of Digital Mumbo Jumbo. I’ve heard this is something for the ERP vendors alone, or even the CAD/CAE, QMS, MES or PLM vendors to address, but in reality, it may be a conglomeration of several vendor’s products stitched together with back-end data repositories and front end analytical tools which will eventually ‘solve’ the problem. This is where the magic happens. Users need to buy-into the solution and use it. There’s nothing worse than a great “Librarian” tool that doesn’t have any ‘books’ (i.e., data) in the library because the users don’t want to, or can’t, check the ‘books’ into the system. Trying to buy all of this from one vendor is a fool’s errand IMHO.

A precursor to these steps is probably to establish some sort of budget for this effort. The aforementioned exercise equipment company had spent a bundle (seven figures?!) previously on a commercial-off-the-shelf software for tracking and notifications along the logistics path. After trying for a few years, it was a bust! Then they contracted with an amazing offshore development team and built a better application in about 6-9 months which runs circles around the prior system at a fraction of the cost. The key to their success: They found a good #3 – someone who knows the Digital Trail – a proverbial Digital Trail Guide with the knowledge and ability to execute on their new software vision. Remember, good people are always the key – versus just tools or processes.

Probably enough hype for today (and I didn’t even mention the word: AI). I think I’ll make another bowl of cereal.

Enjoy 2025!

(Jim has been involved in defining and using Digital Twin-like tools for nearly 40 years. The opinions and views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of this publication – and are not aimed at denigrating any particular vendor or manufacturer, but are used as illustrative educational tools.)