Traceability is easy to claim and awkward to prove. The honest test is whether someone can ring up about a roll from last year and get a real answer the same day.
01 — What gets recorded
Every batch carries its raw material lot, the line and shift it ran on, the process settings, the in-process checks taken through the run, and the release tests it passed before it was allowed out. The despatch note ties that batch to the customer and the date.
Retained samples sit alongside the paperwork. A record that says a batch passed is useful; a physical sample you can retest is what settles an argument.
The point of a quality system is not that nothing ever goes wrong. It is that when something does, it is investigable.
02 — What a query actually looks like
Batch code on the roll ties straight back to the production record.
Process settings and release tests pulled from that run.
What else went out from that batch, and to whom.
03 — Why group-wide matters
The system covers every brand in the group rather than a flagship line. A retail pack of Castaway and a contract-manufactured roll going out under someone else's name are traced the same way, because they came off the same lines under the same procedures.