Material traceability is the ability to report specific material instances with lot and manufacturer information. In electronics manufacturing, material traceability can report to the reference designator level. To enable this granular level of traceability, there are several things you need to set up:

• Create an inventory of material instances.

• Set up one or more factory resources.

• Locate and select required materials for an operation.

• Add a batch and view material setup validation in Production.

Create an inventory of material instances

You can introduce materials into the Inventory area of NPI several ways. The two most common methods of entering materials are through an integration with a third-party ERP system or by entering material instances manually in the Inventory area of the NPI or the Production client application. 

1. Log into the NPI client application.

2. Select Logistics  > Inventory.

3. Select the New Inventory  button on the left side of the window.
   
   
   
   

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4. Use the Select Vendor or the Label Profile drop-down to select either a vendor or a vendor label profile to determine the vendor label template to use.
   
   The Vendor Label determines the fields that need to be scanned or entered (UID Quantity is the absolute minimum).
   
   
   

5. Use the Search button to search for the part number to be introduced into inventory.

6. Enter the number of Unique Identifier Instances (UIDs) to be generated in the Number of UIDs field.
   
   
   
   

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7. (Optional) Use the Select Printer drop-down to select a printer to generate the UID label.

8. Select the Submit UID button to introduce new materials and print material UID labels.

9. (Optional) Select the History button in the lower-left corner of the window at any time to display all material instances generated during the current logon session, as shown in the following illustration.
   
   
   
   

   
   
   Now that material instances exist with UIDs, you can specify required materials at one or more operations in the process flow of a process revision. Since the materials will be loaded onto a physical location on the factory floor, you also need to set up one or more factory resources.

Set up factory resources

• See Create a factory and set up factory resources for details about setting up factory resources.

Locate and select required materials for an operation

1. Log into the NPI client application and open an existing process.

2. Double-click the desired operation where materials will be required by double-clicking it in the Process tree to open it.

3. Select the Document Tools tab at the top of the window. Select Material Setup in the upper-right corner of the window. (The list of required materials is called a Bill of Process (BOP).

4. To require materials for the operation, select the Material Search  button under Material Setup to locate the materials to be loaded.
   
   

5. (Optional) Enter a partial or full description of the material you want to locate in the Search field.

6. Select one or more filters from the Classification Filter drop-down: Part, Tooling, Consumable, or Select All.

7. Select the Search button to locate the material.
   
   
   

   
   
   

8. When the part is located in the Part Library, select the check box in the Material Name column to add the part to the list of required materials.
   
   

9. When you are finished, select OK.
   
   After you specify materials for the operation and add material instances to the Inventory area, you can add a batch for this process to see the resulting material setup validation behavior in the Production client application.

Add a batch and view material setup validation in Production

1. After releasing to production and creating a batch, initialize one or more barcodes and proceed through the process flow until you reach the operation containing the material setup requirement.
   
   When you select this operation, there is an additional requirement to select a physical location where materials will be loaded.
   
   

2. When you select the resource, if the required materials are not already loaded at this location, an error message displays.

3. Select OK to acknowledge the error, then scan or enter the UID for the required material instance.
   
   The vertical Blue bar at the beginning of the material requirement turns to Green when the proper material is scanned or entered.
   
   When all required materials are loaded, you can begin processing assemblies through this operation. Any assembly that passes through this operation inherits the materials known to be loaded at the time of the WIP transaction. Materials need to be loaded only once at the beginning of the batch to satisfy the material setup requirement until the material is unloaded manually or becomes depleted. The available quantity of a material instance is decremented automatically by the number specified in the material setup with each WIP transaction at this operation.
   
   The Materials tab in the Trace window of the Production client application displays the material instances that were loaded when the barcode in question passed through this operation.