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Numbering tracking system was developed in 2000, and put into
full use in 2001. With the system codes, we've full traceability
for the raw material, picking sources, drying and selection
so as to minimize the quality problems. We're the only supplier
in Yunnan who uses the numbering tracking system and we've
learned it in an expensive way.
Below is a description of how the traceability is set up:
Step I. Farmers pick the fresh boletus in the areas where
they live nearby. After more than 15 years harvest, there are dozens
of fixed areas that have high yield of boletus. Usually, for one production
area, there are the farmers from one or two villages picking
the fresh boletus. Then, we first designate two characters based on
Chinese Pinyin system for each of major productions areas.
For example, There is a production area in the Northwest of
Yunnan called Bo Na, which is coded as "BN". This code is usually
recorded by our staff or in some cases, by the farmer that works for us.
Step II. The fresh boletus picked is then transported to the
collection points on the same day for its shelf life is only 24 hours.
Usually, the collection point is in a county's free market, and a county
has a collection point, in some cases two. Then, we use County's
Pinying plus an English letter signify where the collection
point is located.
For example, the collection point for the fresh boletus from
Bo Na is the one in the south of Wuding County, then the code
is WDS. If it's the one in the west of the county, the code
is WDW. This code is recorded by our staff.
Collection point
Step III. The collection point also serves as our first preliminary,
quick quality check mainly based on the appearance. Then,
within 24 hours, the fresh boletus are transferred to the home-based
drying units. There are more than a dozen of home-based units
near the collections point, usually in the same county. After
several years, we select one that is the best, plus another
for backup. The fresh boletus is sorted, graded as per our
specification, and cleaned, then dried.
The home-based drying unit is all run privately by we call
local "self-employer". We design a form for the owner to fill in,
items including date, quantity, processing time and drying time.
Then, based on the form, our staff will use the code like "07/23/01#1",
which means the boletus was processed and dried in the No.1 drying unit
(No.2 for the backup unit) at July 23rd, 2001.
A typical home-based drying unit
Step IV The dried boletus will be transported to our factory
in Tonghai, 200 km from Kunming where we are based within
two days. In our factory, our trained workers will do the
most careful check. In our factory, we can have at most 150
workers do the checking at the same time. Two workers sit
a table with a Arabic number. Based on the packing request, e.g.. 10 kg/carton, two workers will check 10 kg one time. The
first one makes the first check, then passes the checked ones
to the second workers for the re-checking. After the second
one finishes the second checking, he will put a tag with his
table no. on it on the plastic bag, and record it in a form
which states where the dried boletus they check are from with
the codes as above-mentioned.
Working tables
Step V. Then, the dried boletus will be finally spot-checked by our
QA team (5 persons). They are numbered from 01 to 05. One QA person is
responsible for one fifth of the working tables. The QA person
will collect all the forms from the tables he is in charge
of, and after spot-checking, signs his name in QA column,
adds the date, makes the final tracing tag, and then put the
tracing tag on the carton.
To sum up, if there is faulty boletus found in a carton coded
as "BN-WDS-07/23/01#1-T07-Q05-07/26/01", we know it's from the
production area Bo Na, collected in the collection point in the south
of Wuding County, dried by No.1 drying unit there on July 23, 2001,
checked by
table seven in our factory, and finally selectively examined
by our 05 QA person on July 26th, 2001.
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