What is batch tracking?

Batch tracking (largely interchangeable with lot tracking; "batch" leans manufacturing, "lot" leans receiving) ties every unit on the shelf to the group it was made or received with. The batch carries shared attributes: production date, supplier shipment, raw material source, expiration, test results. When something is wrong with one unit, the batch is the blast radius: every unit from batch 2209-A is suspect, and every unit from other batches is provably not. That containment is the operational payoff. A recall without batch records means pulling all stock of the item and contacting every customer who ever bought it. With batch records, it means pulling one batch and contacting the customers whose orders trace to it. The difference is a bad afternoon versus a bad quarter. The discipline lives at two moments. At receiving or production, the batch identifier must land on the record, ideally scanned from the supplier label rather than typed. At consumption or sale, the movement must record which batch it drew from, which is what makes forward tracing (batch to customers) possible, not just backward tracing (unit to batch). Where teams trip: capturing batches at receiving but not at picking, which answers "where did this come from" but not "where did the rest of it go," and the second question is the one a recall asks.