A method of manufacturing an information handling system having at least one hardware component, e.g. motherboard, bearing a unique identifier (component ID) in software-readable form. The method includes generating a digital identifier (system trackcode) which defines the hardware and software configuration of the item and storing the system trackcode in association with the component ID in a manufacturing database such that the component ID can be used as a key to retrieve the associated system trackcode. During manufacture the component ID is read from the motherboard and used to retrieve the associated system trackcode from the database.