A radio frequency identification (RFID) tag is coupled to a circuit board to track the specific operating and environmental conditions of each manufacturing stage as the circuit board passes through the manufacturing stages. An RFID reader and data collector are used at each stage to read the RFID tag and store its identifying information along with processing information, operating conditions, and results for each stage. This permits to quickly and accurately collect manufacturing information for each circuit board at various manufacturing stages as well as the operating conditions for each stage at a particular time. Such manufacturing metrics can then be retrieved on a stage-by-stage basis for a particular circuit board by an identifier printed on the circuit board.