Lot/batch tracking is very important for industries such as food, beverage, pharmaceutical, automotive, or other industries in which lot or batch-produced parts may be subject to recall. Typically these are parts, such as vehicle parts, drugs, invasive medical devices, or other controlled substances that may have a health or safety impact on people, animals, or the environment. Parts that have lot or batch tracking are often called lot-tracked parts or components.
Lot-tracked parts may be sold as end-items or they may be components of other parts. In addition, you can have multiple layers of lot-tracked parts. For example, you might make or buy a tracked item that is composed of lot-tracked components, which are, in turn, composed of other tracked components. Lot/batch tracking becomes increasingly important as part structures become more complex.
The general processes for lot/batch tracking in IFS Applications are as follows:
You will define the part as a lot-tracked part in IFS/Part Catalog. You can define a lot-tracked part as using regular lot tracking or order based lot tracking. Parts that are lot-tracked may also be serial tracked. In addition, you can specify if the part can create more than one lot/batch per production order, or if there can only be one lot/batch for each production order.
For a tracked parent part (lot/batch or serial) which contains at least one lot-tracked component, the Component Lot Rule allows you to specify whether any given lot-tracked component can be used from only one or more than one lot/batch per production schedule receipt or production order.
For more information about the Component Lot Rule attribute, follow this link: About Component Lot Rule
You can reserve lot/batch numbers (or serial numbers) to a production order prior to receiving the parts, which can be helpful in various situations. For example, you would reserve lot/batch numbers:
You can reserve lot/batch numbers:
When producing a part that is defined to use order-based lot-tracking, the shop order will automatically reserve a single lot/batch number for the entire quantity on the shop order, if the Multi-Level Tracking check box for the part in IFS/Part Catalog is selected. If you are producing a part that allows multiple lot/batches per production order, you can reduce the quantity of the system-defined lot/batch reservation and create one or more new reservations, such that the total lot quantity of the order matches the total of the reserved lot/batches.
When you reserve lot/batch numbers on a shop order requisition, these numbers are carried over to any shop order created from the requisition. If you don't reserve the lot/batch numbers on the shop order requisition, you can later reserve them on the shop order.
You can also split existing reserved lot/batch numbers to reserve child lot/batch numbers. These child lots/batches are called sub-lots. Reserving lot/batch numbers while batch balancing is similar to splitting the lot/batch number into sub lots. More information about splitting lots/batches can be found in the About Sub Lots section below.
Lot/batch numbers are unique to a manufactured instance of a lot or batch. The system maintains a master record for each lot/batch number created.
IFS Applications pairs lot/batch numbers with the part numbers to track lots. Therefore, two different part numbers may share the same lot/batch number, but the system will view the two lots separately since the part numbers are different. For example, suppose you have a pump part and a filter part. Each of these parts has a unique part number (or ID). In this example, part 10 PUMP is in inventory with lot/batch number XJ001 and part 10 FILTER is in inventory, also with the same lot/batch number, XJ001. Even though both parts have the same lot/batch number, the system will see no connection between these two lots because the combination of lot/batch number plus part number is unique to each part.
Lot/batch numbers are not tied to a site. If you have a part number that exists on two different sites and the lot/batch number is also the same, the system will see both sets of the part as sharing all of the attributes of that lot.
During the manufacturing process, you can:
For more information about the Multi-Level Tracking flag, follow this link: About Multi-Level Tracking
When building lot-tracked parts that are also serial tracked, you will need to reserve both the lot/batches to be produced as well as the serials, and you will need to link the individual serials being produced to the lot/batch it belongs to. When making a set of serialized parts with only one lot/batch number, it is apparent which lot/batch a given serial number belongs to, but when there are multiple lot/batches reserved, the user will need to specify the linkages between these lot/batches and the serials being produced on the manufacturing order.
As-built structures are created and maintained by shop order. You can view and maintain these tracked structures in a regular structured table or graphically.
A lot/batch master simplifies the handling of lot-tracked parts by capturing and maintaining important attributes about the batch or lot. The Lot/Batch Master is the key window for information about lot-tracked parts. You can view specific attributes about the lot (including information about associated serial numbers), sub lot information, and the history of all inventory transactions that have been performed for that lot or serial number.
All lot-tracked parts must have a lot/batch number assigned to them before or upon receipt of the shop order. If the order being received has reserved lot/batch numbers, you can simply select the reserved lot/batch numbers to receive. If the order for a lot-tracked parent had tracked components, you can modify the proposed as-built structure before receiving the lot-tracked parts. The quantity of a lot/batch being received needs to match the quantity of the lot/batch pre-reserved for the shop order. If the order being received is for an order-based lot-tracked part, the order has no reserved lot/batch numbers, and the Multi-Level Tracking check box in IFS/Part Catalog is not selected, then the system will generate a unique order-based lot/batch number for each receipt, during the receipt process.
When an order based tracked byproduct is received without selecting reserved lot numbers, system will select lot numbers in the following way. Latest receipt lot number of the main part will be reused for the byproduct until another main part is received (eg., Parent Lot- 1, By-product Lot-1, Parent Lot-2, By-Product Lot-2, By-Product Lot-2, Parent Lot-3, By-Product Lot-3.. etc ). If the order initially receives a by product before the main part, by product will receive the lot number 1. (eg., By-Product Lot-1, Parent Lot-1, By-Product Lot-1, Parent Lot-2.. etc).
Reserved lot/batch numbers can be split into sub lots if, for example, you need to split an order into multiple new orders. (Whenever you split an order for a lot-tracked part, you also must split the lot into sub lots.) Sub lots are simply further divisions of a lot or batch. The parent of a sub lot is called a master lot. A lot/batch may be a master to many sub lots, but a sub lot can have only one master lot/batch.
Before you can split lots into sub lots, you must first set the part's sub lot rule to allow sub lots. You also can specify whether the part allows only one lot per production order or multiple lots per production order. (You define both of these rules in the Part record.)
When you allow the system to create the lot/batch numbers for sub lots (such as when you use the Split Lot wizard), each sub lot's lot/batch number will contain the master lot's lot/batch number and a unique ID for the sub lot, separated by a colon. For example, let's say you have a part called Blue Pill and you are manufacturing it in a lot of 10,000, which you have identified with lot/batch number of X1000. You package the Blue Pill lot in 10 different sets, so you want to mark them as distinct sub lots yet still retain their original lot/batch identity. In this case, all ten sets will retain the lot/batch number of X1000, and each set will receive a unique sub lot identity (sub lot 1 through 10, for example). For the example above, lot/batch number X1000 will have sub lots X1000:1, X1000:2, X1000:3 etc.
You can split lots into sub lots using the:
Here are some rules about sub lots:
The Split Lot is available from the IFS/Shop Orders windows, including Shop Order Requisition, Shop Order, and the Lots/Batches tab in various windows (such as Shop Order As Built Structure, and Report Shop Order Operation.
This wizard creates one or more sub lots and a new lot/batch master record for each new sub lot. It also updates the lot/batch master for the master (parent) lot, and either creates new lot/batch reservations for the shop order or creates new inventory part location records for the onhand material. The old lot/batch master record will remain, and you will be able to view sub lots created from the master lot/batch in the Lot/Batch Master/Sub Lot tab or by selecting the lot/batch master record for the sub lot.
Batch balancing is a method of coordinating lot sizes so that the total quantity of components produced matches the quantity needed for the planned end products. It is required when one component is used for more than one end product.
For example, if you were a maker of paint, you might have several different colors with the same BASE ingredient. Batch balancing enables you to take a requisition for BASE and look at all the open requisitions for paints that use BASE. You could then link them together, make adjustments to the various paint requisitions, and have the system alter the BASE requisition to serve all the paint requisitions now linked to it. You could then release the batch, which would generate orders for all the paint requisitions and the BASE requisition. All orders would share the same order number, but have different release number values. They also would share the same batch balance ID.
When the material involved in the batch balancing session is lot-tracked and you allow the system to generate the lot/batch numbers automatically on the order, all orders will be sub lots of the master order. (The master order is the order that controls all the other orders, and has the lowest release number value. In our example above, this would be the BASE order.) When you release the batch associated with a lot-tracked part, shop orders will be generated and all orders generated from the session will have have reserved sub lots assigned to them.
There are four basic cases when you perform batch balancing for a lot-tracked part:
Batch Balance Group Part Cases
When you have either of the first two cases shown above, the child orders are subject to one of the following batch balance group part cases: