Leading insulation, drywall, and ceiling products distributor CCF has taken the first steps towards offering its customers greater visibility on the journey products take from manufacture to site by trialling a new product traceability initiative. Adam Taylor, CCF’s commercial director, discusses the company’s new initiative and how its customers are set to benefit.
In a world where we expect sustainability and product safety to be verifiable, the traceability of building materials from the supply chain is becoming increasingly important. We know this is an issue that really matters to our customers, and that the majority of traceability checks currently are done manually.
It was a desire to take a proactive role that led CCF to develop a system for batch traceability. The solution provides a detailed ‘end-to-end’ report that tracks products from the manufacturer, at manufacturing batch level, through the distribution process and delivery to the goods-in location on a site.
To explore whether this would work in both theory and practice, we created a working group with a manufacturer, Kingspan Insulation, and a customer, Berkeley Group. Both share CCF’s determination to create solutions for our customers that are innovative by design, practical to implement and, above all, drive positive change.
We are now trialling this product traceability programme on a live project. In this first phase, we are focusing on batch-level traceability of full pallets containing three Kingspan products for use at two of Berkeley Group’s sites. Using the unique GTIN (global trade item number), linking up with the manufacturer’s batch code, we can pull together a bespoke report showing which batch was delivered and where it was delivered to.
The results of this first phase will help shape the next stage of this initiative and we are aiming to launch phase two, which will expand the scope of the trials, in the early part of 2024.
We are extremely proud of the work our teams have done so far and we are excited to be playing a key role in developing a more accurate, data-driven solution that will provide the detailed product information customers require in a much smarter way.
To stay up to date with the latest updates on CCF’s product traceability initiative, please follow CCF on social media or visit www.ccfltd.co.uk
