What is a Recall?
A Recall is a critical safety and crisis management procedure that consists of the immediate withdrawal of a product from the market or supply chain. It occurs when a specific batch is found to have defects, consumer health risks, or non-compliance with regulatory standards (very common in the food, pharmaceutical, and automotive sectors).
Role of the WMS in Recall Management
The ability to perform a recall quickly and accurately is the ultimate test of a WMS's Traceability:
Lot Traceability
The WMS can identify, in seconds, the exact location of each unit of a contaminated or defective batch still in the warehouse.
Automatic Blocking
The system instantly blocks all references to that batch, preventing them from being selected for picking or shipped by mistake.
Destination Identification
The WMS generates a report of all shipped orders containing that batch, allowing the company to inform customers and authorities with surgical precision about who received the product.