Follow each board and device from bill of materials to serial number, test result and shipment.

Electronics trades work to a drawing set and a bill of materials. A PCB manufacturer receives Gerber files and produces bare boards, laminated, drilled, plated and etched, in panels cut to the size the assembler asked for. An assembly company places and solders components onto them. An electronic manufacturing services provider builds whole products for other brands, and an embedded systems company writes the firmware that runs on them.

The records are fine grained. A single board may hold hundreds of part numbers, each with a manufacturer, a reel or tray, a date code and a moisture rating. Builds are tied to a revision, and a change needs approval first, so the line never works from a bill that engineering has already replaced. Test stations produce pass and fail results for each serial number, and those results decide whether a lot is released, reworked or held back for the engineer to review.

Sensor and IoT device makers add calibration data and firmware versions, while industrial electronics makers carry long product lives and repair histories that run for many years after the first shipment. Consumer electronics adds warranty returns, batch recalls and the service desk that handles both for every unit sold under the brand. One missing part can hold an order. Planners feel it first.