FSMA 204: Tracking food from start to finish

FSMA 204 - Are you ready?

If you are not familiar with FSMA 204, we suggest reading our introduction to FSMA

Compliance with Section 204 of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and expanded traceability requirements significantly increases the volume and complexity of data to manage. FSMA 204 mandates the tracking of critical food products through the supply chain, requiring the capture and maintenance of specific Key Data Elements (KDEs) at Critical Tracking Events (CTEs). These data elements often reside in separate, non-interoperable systems and entities, spanning records from production, handling, and shipment of finished goods

Rapid production of records across Critical Tracking Events with a multiplication of Key Data Elements thus requires coordination of data elements collation into a single digital source. This challenge, along with achieving an incredibly low supply chain data latency rate, is exactly what the Kezzler Connected Products Platform was designed to solve.

Connecting the dots

Verifying that every ingredient can be tracked from its origin to the finished product through a sufficiently unique Traceability Lot Codes not only enhances compliance and operational efficiency but also boosts consumer confidence.

The collaboration of Kezzler's expertise in supply chain data management solutions with the cutting-edge smart manufacturing Rockwell Automation provides through Plex and FactoryTalk® solutions enables producers to elevate their processing and factory data, creating a comprehensive product genealogy that is interconnected with the entire supply chain.

Rockwell Automation at the very epicenter of FSMA 204

The Connected Products Platform alone will not help you much with meeting the compliance regulations if you don’t feed the platform with the data that must be reported.

A lot of that data is generated at the transitional stage from when raw materials turn into a finished food product. The factory is a major data source and is also the only place where raw (upstream) materials meet and finished products leave and disperse throughout the downstream supply chain.

Generating a FSMA-204 report from a single factory and a single warehouse is a relatively straightforward exercise, but what if you use several MESs and ERP systems, in various factories and warehouses?

As described earlier. This makes FSMA-204 reporting more complex and challenging.

This is where the Kezzler-Rockwell Partnership offers the most value.

The Kezzler-Rockwell Automation Partnership

Rockwell Automation is a global leader in industrial automation and digital transformation and with Kezzler’s technology, they can offer a comprehensive solution for FSMA 204 traceability in the food processing & manufacturing space. Not only that, but Kezzler is proud to have collaborated with industry partners under GS1 US on the FSMA 204 Implementation Guidelines, which recommend using GS1 standards like Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) and Global Location Numbers (GLNs) to uniquely identify products and locations. These standards enhance interoperability and data sharing across systems and organizations.

The seamless integration between services provided by Rockwell Automation and Kezzler enables producers to elevate processing and factory data captured within the four walls of the plant into a single-source query product genealogy connected to the overall supply chain. Together, Kezzler and Rockwell Automation are taking traceability beyond the traditional one-up/one-down framework.

Rockwell Automation has a wide range of cutting-edge smart manufacturing solutions such as Plex and FactoryTalk to capture the data at the factory and warehouse level where needed.

Finally, Rockwell Automation will also help you connect the Kezzler platform to other vendors' ERP, MES, and so on. Deploying the Kezzler platform is always a non-intrusive exercise.

To learn more about solutions that can aide you with your FSMA 204 compliance challenges, register for our webinar here.