Glossary · Evidence, assurance and traceability
Traceability
German: Rückverfolgbarkeit
In systems engineering and safety, traceability is the ability to follow relationships among requirements, hazards, controls, tests, changes, and documentation. It works in both directions: from a hazard to its verified controls, and from a document back to the hazards it addresses.
- Systems engineering
- Technical documentation
In one sentence
Traceability lets engineers and auditors follow links between requirements, hazards, controls, tests, changes and documents in both directions.
Example
When an auditor asks why a warning appears in the palletizer manual, traceability leads from the warning to the residual risk entry, the hazard and the rejected design alternatives.
How it applies
- Systems engineering: Traceability is built from trace links and stable IDs. Define link types and responsibilities early.
- Change control: Without traceability, change control cannot find what a change affects. With it, impact analysis becomes systematic.
- Technical documentation: Give safety-relevant topics and messages IDs and link them to hazards and requirements. Then a change to a hazard automatically flags the affected manual content.
- Regulation: The EU AI Act requires technical documentation and logging for high-risk AI systems; traceability makes both workable. Traceability supports compliance but does not establish it.
Traceability vs. measurement traceability
In systems engineering, traceability links lifecycle items. Measurement traceability is a metrology term for the chain of calibrations to recognized references.