Step 4 of 4
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Records and traceability: what to log, what it tells you over time
The minimum die log per hit-block, what a year of those logs reveals that a single teardown cannot, and the standards (AIAG CQI-9, IATF 16949) that already require most of it.
Step 4 of 4Standards context
The shop-floor logbook is not a new idea. Two existing automotive-supply standards already require most of it, and most forge shops shipping to automotive are already audited against them whether they treat the audit as routine or as paperwork.
AIAG CQI-9 4th Edition (June 2020), Special Process: Heat Treat System Assessment. CQI-9 governs the in-house heat-treat lines that forge shops run for stress relief, re-temper, and re-nitride on production dies. The standard requires pyrometry records (SAT, TUS, thermocouple calibration), process-table records per load, atmosphere records on instrumented furnaces, and full parts traceability per load. The framework is exactly the framework the production-die log uses on the press: an identifier for the asset, a record of the process variables that ran against it, and a chain of custody from raw input to certified output. A shop already running a CQI-9 line is filling out the harder half of the discipline. Extending the same discipline to die-run logs on the press is a smaller jump than starting from a paper-on-a-clipboard baseline.
IATF 16949:2016, Automotive Quality Management System. IATF 16949 requires documented die-maintenance records as part of the production-tooling control system (clauses 7.1.3 and 8.5.1.5). The standard does not prescribe the format of the log. It requires that the records exist, that they tie to a tool identifier, that they cover maintenance and inspection events, and that they are retrievable on audit. A shop that runs a hit-block log on every production die has those records by default. A shop that runs no log has a documented finding waiting for the next audit.
The shop-floor argument against logs is usually "we do not have time." The standards argument cuts the other way. Automotive customers already require the records. The choice is between writing them down as you go, which costs two minutes per hit-block, or reconstructing them from operator memory the week before an audit, which costs days and produces records the auditor knows are reconstructed.
Quick check
A shop ships into automotive supply and runs no formal die-run logs. The IATF 16949 auditor asks for the die-maintenance history on a specific die that has been in service for fourteen months. The maintenance supervisor reconstructs the history from memory and from a few sticky notes on the cabinet. What is the auditor most likely to find, and how does the hit-block log change that conversation?