IUID Verification and Compliance Reports for Audit Preparation

As part of the A2B Tracking Webinar Series, Peter Collins and I recently discussed the 5 Key Steps to create a compliant MIL‑STD‑130 IUID label. For the purpose of this post I would like to talk about IUID Verification and Compliance Reports for audit preparation.

Audit Readiness

In 2018, Audit Preparation of government property and contracts needs to be forefront in your mind regardless of whether you create your own IUID labels or outsource them through a supplier. Make sure that you have the necessary reporting documentation to show a DCMA auditor that will prove your labels are IUID compliant.

During an audit, the DCMA auditor will be looking to see that the IUID label is affixed to the asset and that the barcode is readable. Once that is established the auditor will then undoubtedly ask for documentation that the IUID labels you are using are fully compliant against MIL-STD-130.

Verification Report

The documentation that the auditor will be looking for is the Verification report. In the case where you have outsourced your labels, your vendor should also provide you with a Certificate of Conformance report along with a Verification report.

The Verification report tells the auditor that the IUID label has been verified against the MIL-STD-130 verification and validation compliance requirements.

The Validation process confirms that the data elements (or “syntax”) in the 2D Data Matrix barcode have met MIL-STD-130 compliance. The Verification process confirms the quality of the barcode has also met MIL-STD-130 compliance so that it is readable for the entire lifecycle of the asset. The mark quality of the barcode should also show a passing grade of “B” or better on the Verification report.

In our whitepaper The Most Common Misconceptions about IUID and RFID Compliance, we provide more detail as to the differences between Verification and Validation in Misconception #1.

The overall grade of the entire Verification report should show a “PASS” status. Under no circumstances should any IUID label be applied to an asset that shows a “FAILED” status in their verification report. This will cause you to not only fail the audit; but, will also require you to take the necessary corrective actions to provide fully compliant labels which leads to increased costs and delayed payments.

Certificate of Conformance

When receiving IUID labels from an outside source you should also be provided with a Certificate of Conformance report. This report should state that the IUID labels meet all of the MIL-STD-130 IUID compliance requirements. The certificate should give a summary of the labels provided such as the part and serial numbers and the material used to produce the labels. It should also show a date that the verifier, the tool used to complete the verification process, was calibrated. This will show the auditor that the vendor you used to supply your IUID labels is maintaining their equipment properly to meet IUID compliance requirements.

Having your IUID Verification and Certificate of Conformance reports on-hand ready to show the auditor demonstrates your level of audit readiness. It will also make the audit go much more smoothly and most importantly it will show the auditor that you have a full understanding of your contract obligations.