Every serial. Complete history.
Three kinds of phone calls turn a manufacturing CEO grey: the recall call, the warranty-claim spike, and the customer auditor showing up unannounced. All three ask the same question: "what did you build, with what, by who, when, and how do you know?" Ignite Lean answers them in three clicks because the answer was captured automatically at build commit, not reconstructed from sticky notes.
Operator, station, time, components, photos. Every unit
When the operator hits "commit" on the last step of a build, Ignite Lean writes one immutable build record: the operator (by name + user id), the workstation, the start and finish timestamps, every component consumed (by part number and lot/serial), every parent serial scanned, every photo taken in-line, every defect flag raised, every supervisor approval. The record is append-only. Corrections are new events, not overwrites. So the auditor can trust that what they see is what happened.
- One build record per unit, written at commit
- Operator + workstation + start/finish timestamps
- Every consumed component (part number + lot/serial)
- Every parent serial scanned at the join station
- Every photo taken in-line during the build
- Every flag, every approval, every disposition. Attributed and timestamped
- Append-only. No edits, only new events on the same serial
Vehicle ← sub-assembly ← components
A vehicle (BC-260517-0023) is built from a left-front caliper sub-assembly (CA-26051-0019), which was built from a rotor (R-260517-091), a set of pads (P-260517-204), and a kit of fasteners (lot F-26044-12). Ignite Lean captures the parent-child relationships at the join station. The operator scans the caliper serial when assembling the brake corner, and the merge is recorded automatically. Pull BC-260517-0023 later and you get the full tree, exactly as built.
- Parent serial enforcement at join stations
- Parallel sub-assemblies merge into one parent (caliper + rotor + pad → corner)
- Multi-level trees: vehicle ← corner ← caliper ← rotor + pads
- Lot-level traceability on consumables (fasteners, fluids, gaskets)
- Reverse lookup: given a component lot, find every parent serial it went into
- Forward lookup: given a parent serial, expand the full tree
From "we think" to "here are the 47 units"
Tuesday at 3:14 p.m., a customer reports brake-pad delamination on BC-260517-0023. You suspect the pad supplier sent a bad lot. Open the build record, see lot P-260517-204 on the affected unit, then reverse- lookup: every unit that consumed lot P-260517-204. 47 units. Three already shipped, 12 in finished-goods, 32 still in progress. Without Ignite Lean: a week of sticky-notes and supervisor memory, with a good chance of missing units. With Ignite Lean: one click.
- Reverse lookup on any component lot → every parent serial affected
- Status filter: shipped, in finished goods, in progress, scrap
- Per-unit history of every operator who touched it
- Per-unit history of every WI revision in effect at each step
- Export to CSV for the recall coordination workbook
- Filterable by date range, "everything built since the lot opened on Monday"
BC-260517-0023- PASSBrake corner assembly ·
BC-260517-0023Sam T. · STN-08 · May 17, 2026 · 16:42- Caliper sub-asm ·
CA-26051-0019Maya R. · STN-04 · 14:22 · v4 WI- Rotor ·
R-260517-091· lot R-26049-2 - Pads (set) ·
P-260517-204· lot P-26049-7 - Fasteners (4) · lot F-26044-12
- Rotor ·
- Mount hardware · lot M-26044-8Consumed at STN-08 · 16:35
The auditor's favourite page
The build history page lists every build the org has ever done. Filter by date, operator, workstation, status (pass / fail / on-hold), serial prefix, or product. Tap any row for the full record. Every step, every consumed part, every photo, every approval. The auditor sits down, asks "show me 20 random units from last quarter", you set the filter, they sample. Ten minutes vs. half a day with binders.
- Every build ever, searchable
- Filter: date range, operator, station, status, serial, product
- Per-build detail page: full step record + components + photos + approvals
- Export to CSV for sampling, recall coordination, customer audit prep
- No retention limit on paid plans. Your audit window is your retention
- BC-260517-0023Brake corner L/FST Sam Torres STN-08PASSMay 17 · 16:42
- BC-260517-0022Brake corner L/FST Sam Torres STN-08PASSMay 17 · 16:24
- BC-260517-0021Brake corner R/FMR Maya R. STN-04HOLDMay 17 · 15:58
- BC-260517-0020Brake corner L/FST Sam Torres STN-08PASSMay 17 · 15:41
- BC-260517-0019Brake corner L/RJL Jorge Lee STN-08SCRAPMay 17 · 15:18
- BC-260517-0018Brake corner R/FMR Maya R. STN-04PASSMay 17 · 14:53
- BC-260517-0017Brake corner L/FST Sam Torres STN-08PASSMay 17 · 14:31
- BC-260517-0016Brake corner L/RJL Jorge Lee STN-08PASSMay 17 · 14:08
No rewriting history
The single most important property of an audit log is that nobody can change it after the fact. Including the admin. Ignite Lean enforces this at the database level: build events are insert-only, with no update or delete privileges granted to any application role. A correction is a new event ("operator reflagged unit BC-260517-0023 as scrap, original pass-flag preserved"), not an overwrite. The auditor reads the timeline, not a rewritten version.
- Build events are insert-only at the database level
- No application role has update or delete privileges on the events table
- Corrections are new events ("re-disposition") not edits
- Full timeline preserved for every serial. Pass, fail, re-flag, approval
- Closes the audit risk of "did someone change the record after the fact"
Frequently asked questions
What is kit-level traceability?
The ability to answer which components, lots, operators, stations, and work instruction revisions went into a specific finished serial number, and to run that backwards from a suspect component to every unit it touched.
How long does a recall investigation take?
The question it answers is a query, not a records search. You look up the serial and see its full genealogy, or start from a component lot and list the affected units. The work that used to take days in a filing cabinet is the point of capturing it digitally.
Do operators have to scan every part?
Only where you set a scan rule. Components flagged as serial or lot controlled require a scan at the step; the rest are confirmed as consumed. You decide which parts justify the extra second.
The rest of Ignite Lean
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