Traveler, batch record, device history record: six names for one thing.

A traveler is the document that physically accompanies a job through the shop. It lists the operations in sequence, and it leaves a space at each operation for whoever performed it to sign, stamp or initial. On paper it is the sheet in the plastic sleeve zip-tied to the tote.

The traveler is the oldest form of the record in this list and the most literal. Its whole design intent is that the proof travels with the part, so that at any point you can pick up the job and see exactly how far it has gotten and who touched it. An electronic traveler keeps that property and removes the two failure modes of the paper one: it cannot be lost, and it cannot be signed in advance.

Engineering releases an as-designed definition: this drawing, this revision, this bill of materials, these tolerances. The as-built record is what the plant actually did. Same part number, but this specific unit got that specific lot of fasteners, that torque reading, that substituted component approved by that engineer on that date.

The gap between as-designed and as-built is not a defect. It is normal manufacturing. The problem is when nobody wrote the gap down. Warranty claims, recalls and customer escapes almost all live in the difference between the two, and a plant that only has the as-designed side is answering questions with a drawing instead of with evidence.

Genealogy is the relationship structure rather than the document. It records which raw material lots went into which subassemblies, and which subassemblies went into which finished units, so the tree can be walked in both directions.

Backward trace answers the question you get from a customer: this unit failed, what was in it. Forward trace answers the question you get from a supplier: this lot was bad, which units are affected and where did they ship. Forward trace is the one that decides whether a recall costs you four hundred units or four months of production, and it is the single most expensive thing to reconstruct after the fact.

A birth certificate is not a separate record. It is the as-built record and the genealogy tree for one unit, assembled into a deliverable and handed to the customer when the unit ships.

It appears in this list because it is contractual rather than regulatory. A Tier 1 supplier is not producing it because a standard requires the format. They are producing it because an OEM wrote it into the purchase agreement, and because the OEM will audit against it. That makes it the version of this record most likely to arrive as a customer demand with a date attached, which is usually what turns a nice-to-have into a funded project.

The Device History Record is the medical device industry's name for the same artifact, and it is the one that is written directly into regulation. 21 CFR 820.184 sets out what a DHR has to contain: the dates of manufacture, the quantity manufactured, the quantity released for distribution, the acceptance records showing the device was made to the Device Master Record, the primary identification label, and any device identification and control numbers used. FDA's Quality Management System Regulation aligns Part 820 with ISO 13485, which carries the equivalent obligation.

The important structural difference from a traveler is what the DHR is checked against. A traveler proves the operations happened. A DHR proves the operations matched an approved master definition, which means the record is only as good as the link between the unit and the specific revision of the spec in force when it was built.

An electronic batch record is the batch production and control record required under 21 CFR 211.188, kept electronically. Where the discrete terms in this list track a serial number through a routing, a batch record tracks a lot through a recipe: the quantities of each component actually dispensed, the equipment and line used, the in-process control results, the yield at each stage, and the signatures of the people who performed and checked each significant step.

The word recipe is doing real work here, and it is worth borrowing even outside process industries. A batch record is structured as an executed copy of a master recipe. That is precisely the relationship a good discrete build record has to its work instruction: one is the approved definition, the other is the signed evidence that the definition was followed on this specific run.