Component engineering is gaining substantial interest in the software engineering community. A lot of research effort has been devoted to analysis and design methods for component-based software. However, only few papers have addressed the testing and maintenance problems of component-based software. This paper discusses component traceability and maintenance issues and solutions in supporting software components. It proposes a Java framework and a systematic approach to support the tracking and monitoring of software components in component-based programs. Application examples and the supporting system are described. Moreover, the paper introduces the concept of traceable components, including requirements, design guidelines and architecture style. The presented results are useful to add systematic component tracking features into the current Java and EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans) technology to support software components, including third-party components in software maintenance.