Where do you find out a kit is short — at stores, or at the line?

A job is released to the line. The kit is issued. Somewhere in it, one component is short by forty pieces.

Nobody finds out at kitting. They find out at the machine, with the line set up and waiting, because the kit was checked against a list rather than counted against a job.

Issue quantity is recorded against the job at kitting, so a short kit is caught before the line is set up.

Boards fail at test. Some are reworked, some are scrapped, and both are counted.

What is rarely counted is which line, which feeder, which solder profile keeps producing them — so the same fault is repaired again and again instead of removed once.

Failures are recorded against the line and the operation that produced them, not only against the job.

A customer returns a unit and asks what went into it. Which reel, which lot, which line, which operator, which test result.

Everything was recorded somewhere. Bringing it together takes most of a day, and until you have, you cannot tell him whether anything else is affected.

Lot, line, operator and test result attach to the unit as it is built. The trace is a filter.