The Traceability Control Loop Is Closing
Over recent editions of Traceability Weekly™, the direction of travel has become increasingly consistent.
Product identification is becoming connected to data. Verification is moving closer to the point where information is created. Inspection is extending deeper into the final stages of production. And regulation is forcing manufacturers to think not simply about whether information exists, but whether it can be applied, read, verified, recorded and moved through the supply chain reliably.
This week offers another strong illustration of that convergence.
The emerging architecture is no longer simply:
Mark → Label → Verify → Inspect → Package
There is a second control loop running underneath it:
Create → Check → Record → Act
Three developments from the past week demonstrate how quickly those two layers are coming together.
Markem-Imaje pushes GS1 2D beyond the printed QR code
One of the most directly relevant developments came from Markem-Imaje.
The company has introduced CoLOS® 2D Activate and CoLOS® 2D Engage, software designed to help manufacturers create, organise and manage GS1 Digital Link-enabled QR codes while connecting those codes to wider digital product experiences. Markem-Imaje: CoLOS 2D Activate and CoLOS 2D Engage
CoLOS 2D Activate allows organisations to use existing GTINs to create and manage QR codes, while CoLOS 2D Engage provides a no-code environment for controlling the digital information accessed after a consumer or supply-chain participant scans the code.
The platform supports capabilities including GS1 Digital Link, serialised QR codes, analytics and integration with wider enterprise systems.
That distinction matters.
For years, the coding conversation centred largely around the physical act of putting variable information onto packaging.
The next generation of product identification asks a much broader set of questions:
Which data belongs in the code?
Who owns that data?
Where does the code resolve?
Can the information change without changing the packaging?
Can one identifier support supply-chain, regulatory and consumer use cases simultaneously?
That is why the transition towards GS1-compliant 2D barcodes is becoming as much a software and data-management project as a printing project.
GS1’s Ambition 2027 is not legislation. It is an industry transition goal under which retail point-of-sale systems are expected to become capable of processing defined GS1-compliant 2D barcodes alongside traditional linear codes by the end of 2027.
Markem-Imaje’s latest software is therefore another commercial signal that the coding OEM market is preparing for a world in which the value increasingly sits behind the code, not simply in the mark itself.
MSM Solutions moves verification directly to the printer
If Markem-Imaje illustrates the creation and management of product identity, MSM Solutions addresses the next problem:
How do you know the identity was printed correctly?
On 25 August, MSM Solutions announced PortalTrack Print IQ™, a platform combining its PortalTrack software with Zebra Technologies fixed industrial scanners and AI-enabled inspection tools.
The system validates labels as they are printed rather than relying on downstream sampling.
MSM Solutions: PortalTrack Print IQ can verify 1D and 2D barcodes, inspect print quality, use OCR to compare human-readable information with encoded data and trigger a printer interlock when a failure occurs. It also creates structured records containing information such as serial numbers, batch data, printer details, operators and timestamps.
This is a significant architecture change.
A traditional workflow might look like:
Print → labels accumulate → sample inspection → downstream discovery of error
The closed-loop approach becomes:
Print → inspect immediately → verify data → stop on failure → record event
That dramatically reduces the distance a defect can travel before being detected.
For manufacturers operating high-volume lines, that distance matters.
An unreadable barcode discovered while the label is still at the printer is a small intervention.
The same barcode discovered after it has been applied to thousands of finished products can become rework, quarantine, chargebacks or a traceability investigation.
The underlying principle is therefore bigger than this particular product launch.
Verification is moving towards the source of the error.
As GS1 2D adoption grows and products carry more encoded information, that principle becomes more important.
A QR code may technically exist on the packaging while still being useless if its print quality, encoded data or relationship with the human-readable information is wrong.
This is where Mark and Verify cease to be separate conversations.
LuxTronic takes inspection all the way to the finished pallet
At the opposite end of the production process, LuxTronic has focused on another potential quality blind spot.
The company launched FinalCheck™, an AI-powered vision platform designed to inspect products during the final stages between production and pallet completion.
LuxTronic: FinalCheck end-of-line inspection uses three overhead camera positions at the accumulation table, divider and pallet well.
The system is designed to detect conditions including downed units, inverted units, missing products, dents and pallet-layer abnormalities. When a configured defect threshold is reached, it can stop the line, record the event and retain the associated image.
LuxTronic says every inspected event can then be made searchable through its LuxVision environment across lines, shifts and dates.
That last point is particularly important from a traceability perspective.
Machine vision has traditionally been viewed principally as an inspection technology.
But inspection becomes much more powerful when the outcome itself is traceable.
Instead of simply saying:
“This pallet passed.”
a manufacturer can begin to build evidence showing:
what was inspected, when it was inspected, which defect occurred, which layer was affected and which pallet it ultimately related to.
That can materially improve the scope of investigations.
If a downstream issue emerges, the objective is no longer to place an unnecessarily broad production window on hold because nobody knows which pallets might be affected.
The goal is to use inspection history to narrow the affected population.
This is traceability being applied to quality events, rather than only to product identity.
From individual machines to a closed production loop
The three developments belong to different areas of the market.
Markem-Imaje sits heavily within coding, marking and connected product identity.
MSM Solutions operates around barcode, RFID and industrial data capture.
LuxTronic focuses on AI-powered machine vision and manufacturing inspection.
Yet they are solving different stages of the same problem.
The line needs to:
Create the correct identity
then:
apply it correctly
then:
verify that the physical result matches the intended data
then:
inspect the product and packaging as it progresses
then:
retain enough information to act intelligently when something goes wrong.
That is why the positioning we continue to use remains relevant:
Mark → Label → Verify → Inspect → Package
The opportunity increasingly lies in the connections between those stages.
Regulatory & Standards Watch
This week’s Watch contains two developments with particularly direct implications for product identification and traceability.
UK vaping: digital duty stamps arrive next week
The UK’s new Vaping Products Duty is now extremely close to implementation.
HMRC confirms that digital vaping duty stamps become available from 1 September 2026, ahead of Vaping Products Duty taking effect from 1 October 2026. From 1 October, duty must be paid on liable vaping products released for sale or supply in the UK and a vaping duty stamp must be attached to the individual retail package. HMRC: Prepare for Vaping Products Duty and the Vaping Duty Stamps Scheme
The traceability implications go considerably beyond applying a physical stamp.
HMRC’s digital-stamp guidance requires activation and prescribed data capture, while scanning events apply at defined points in the product journey. Aggregation can also be used to associate multiple individual digital stamps beneath a single aggregate code for cartons or pallets. HMRC: How vaping duty stamps work
That creates a real operational requirement around:
stamp application → scanning → activation → SKU data → aggregation → movement events → records
For UK vape manufacturers, importers, packers and associated technology suppliers, this is no longer a future regulation to watch.
It is an implementation project happening now.
And it potentially touches labelling equipment, machine vision, scanners, serialisation, aggregation software, line controls and system integration.
EU Battery Passport: Commission publishes implementation guidance
A second highly relevant development came from the European Commission on 21 August.
The Commission published new guidance designed to help industry prepare the data required for the Digital Battery Passport, bringing together 71 data points and clarifying their legal sources and applicability across different battery categories. European Commission: Digital Battery Passport preparation guidance
From 18 February 2027, battery passports become mandatory for EV batteries, LMT batteries and industrial batteries above 2 kWh placed on the EU market.
The underlying Batteries Regulation also requires batteries to carry a QR code from that date. For the relevant battery categories, that QR code provides access to the battery passport through a unique identifier. EU Batteries Regulation: QR code and Battery Passport requirements
This is exactly the type of regulation that illustrates why digital product identity matters.
A manufacturer does not simply need somewhere to host 71 fields of information.
It needs a reliable architecture connecting:
physical battery → unique identifier → QR code → digital record → lifecycle information
And because the QR code must remain visible, legible and indelible, the physical marking and verification challenge matters just as much as the database behind it.
For battery manufacturers, automotive suppliers, marking OEMs and integration partners, February 2027 is now less than six months away.
What this means for the talent market
The technical direction is increasingly reflected in the people companies need.
A coding specialist who understands only print mechanics can still be highly valuable.
But connected traceability projects increasingly require expertise spanning several layers.
A Technical Sales Manager may need to understand GS1 structures, Digital Link, verification and customer IT architecture.
An Applications Engineer may move between print technology, scanners, OCR, vision and PLC integration.
An EoL Project Engineer may need to understand robotics, inspection data, pallet-level records and MES connectivity.
A manufacturer facing digital duty stamps or Battery Passport requirements may need someone capable of coordinating quality, engineering, packaging, regulatory and IT teams around one implementation.
That is where the talent shortage becomes more specialised.
The challenge is increasingly not just finding somebody who has worked with a printer, camera or robot.
It is finding people who understand how the complete traceability architecture connects.
RoboEdge view
Last week’s theme was that identification, verification and automation were becoming one connected process.
This week advances that argument.
Markem-Imaje is expanding the software layer behind the 2D code.
MSM Solutions is verifying product data at the moment it is printed.
LuxTronic is creating inspection history at the final stages before the pallet leaves production.
Meanwhile, UK vaping duty stamps and the EU Battery Passport show why governments and standards bodies increasingly need the physical product to remain reliably connected to trusted digital information.
The result is a traceability architecture with a control loop running through the entire line:
Mark → Label → Verify → Inspect → Package
and beneath it:
Create → Check → Record → Act
That is increasingly what modern product identification looks like.
Traceability Weekly™ is produced by RoboEdge Talent, covering the technologies, regulation, standards and talent shaping global Product Identification, Traceability & End-of-Line Automation.