The ability to collect and analyze accurate process, production, and inventory data is critical in today's business environment. Process and ingredient data is automatically collected for each compound produced. This complete compound history provides the detailed data necessary for process analysis, quality control, and traceability. The compound history, material tracking, usage, production, scheduling, and recipe information is available within the database, and can be utilized by other processes and/or applications at the plant information system level, such as MRP, ERP, etc.