From Tracking to Demonstrable Traceability

This preprint proposes a redefinition of traceability as a demonstrable and falsifiable property, rather than a feature, report, or compliance claim. While traceability is widely asserted across supply chains, manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics, most systems conflate it with tracking or record availability and fail under audit, recall, or litigation conditions. The paper introduces an axiomatic framework that defines the minimal conditions under which traceability can be said to exist. From these axioms, it derives validation tests capable of determining whether a given state is traceable, as well as forensic analysis procedures that identify the precise point, cause, and context of traceability failure. The framework is technology-neutral and applicable across sectors. It enables systems to explicitly distinguish between traceable and non-traceable states and to demonstrate, rather than merely claim, traceability over time. The work concludes that if a system cannot demonstrate where and why traceability fails, it never possessed traceability to begin with.