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©2026 Industrial Metal Supply. All Rights Reserved.
19 March 2026 at 19:18 • 4 mins read
What is material traceability and why is it so important? In the
metal manufacturing business, quality assurance processes protect
manufacturers, buyers and sellers from defective products, which can
become a liability. Additionally, a paper trail can be required for
tax credits, insurance, quality assurance, or environmental
certification of new construction.
To prove and document the
material makeup, provenance and quality of any steel member from the
mill to its final destination requires a material traceability
system.
By tracking each individual member, quality problems
or product failures can be narrowed to a specific batch or production
process. This will help isolate and reduce further issues with an
individual heat (lot) or process, while improving performance
evaluation and quality control measures.
At Industrial Metal Supply, our customers trust us to provide
materials that meet their specific requirements, along with an
accurate paper trail. This is especially important for customers
maintaining ISO certification for their quality assurance program.
Our material tracking process ensures continuous and reliable
traceability from start to finish. For example, a product, such as a
stainless-steel angle, starts as a billet, or bar, cast out of molten
stainless steel. Mill employees test the molten steel for compliance
to the correct alloy they are making. When they reach the desired
recipe, they assign a “heat number” to that batch and that heat number
follows the batch all the way to the finished product.
During this process, testing is completed that shows the batch
conforms to all ordering or manufacturing requirements, including
common specifications. A one-page mill test report (MTR) is created
and maintained. The MTR includes the date, heat number, item, and
specifications met, along with other important data and a statement of
compliance and certification. Additional Lot Codes may be added
following the material through transportation, storage, and any
further manufacturing and machining processes to form the steel
end-product, such as angle, sheet or bar.
When IMS orders
material for stock or special orders we require the mill to send the
test reports to us along with the material. The material also must be
tagged and the heat number traceable back to the material’s origins
and the relevant MTR. Our process maintains this traceability as long
as the item remains in our stock (and for three more years?).
IMS manages and maintains our process to ensure continuous and reliable traceability from start to finish. Critical procedures required to maintain traceability include:
Some smaller items aren’t produced with heat numbers and
test reports requiring traceability don’t arrive with this level of
documentation. Despite this lack of traceability, IMS still may be
asked to provide a “certificate of compliance” to our customers
certifying that our shipment meets the customer’s ordering requirements.
Some customers require this tracking information, or their
projects will never meet specifications. Other customers may not ask
for it at the time of purchase, but the need for this information
may come up later and we need to be able to provide it to them.
Even if customers aren’t interested in test reports or
traceability, IMS follows good practices using a well-organized
system that maintains traceability throughout our processes. The IMS
material tracking system provides risk mitigation to ensure we
provide high-quality, accurate material with a process that we can
stand by.
For top-quality steel products that meet all your
material traceability standards, contact Industrial Metal Supply.