Lot and Serial Control

This chapter covers the following topics:

Lot and Serial Attributes

Overview of Lot and Serial Attributes

Lot attributes are fields in addition to the lot number that provide additional information about a lot such as Country of Origin and Best By date.

Serial attributes are fields in addition to the serial number that provide additional information about a serial such as Serial Condition. The Serial Condition could indicate whether a particular piece is New or Refurbished.

Related Topics

Lot Control, Oracle Inventory User's Guide

Serial Control, Oracle Inventory User's Guide

Functional Business Flow Description

Oracle Warehouse Management contains several seeded lot and serial attributes such as best by date. These seeded attributes are listed as column names in the MTL_LOT_NUMBERS and MTL_SERIAL_NUMBERS tables. There are also forty additional unnamed lot and forty named serial attributes you can modify so you can track important information for your industries. You can track different attributes for each item, that are customized for specific defaulting and validation requirements. The system can populate the attribute information any time you create new lots or serials, such as at purchase order receipt, miscellaneous receipt, cycle or physical counting, lot split transactions, lot merge transactions, lot translate transactions, or WIP completions.

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Types of Attributes

Oracle Warehouse Management stores attributes in the date, number, and character fields to simplify extensions you build on these attributes. There are three types of attributes:

Date Attributes

The system contains the following date attributes:

Maturity date is the date the lot matures and is ready for use and best by date is the date when the quality of the lot may degrade. You can write extensions to update the lot material status on the maturity date or best by date. You can set the default origination date to the current date upon receipt and override it to the date of manufacture at the supplier, if applicable. The default origination date for a WIP completion is the date the job completes. The re-test date is the date the material needs to be re-tested to re-verify the quality. You may define an item descriptive flexfield to track how frequently to retest an item. You can use this item attribute to default the re-test date.

You can define up to ten distinct date attributes for any given lot or serial number that reflects item information you capture This information is stored in the D_ATTRIBUTE1 through D_ATTRIBUTE10 columns on the MTL_LOT_NUMBERS and MTL_SERIAL_NUMBERS tables.

Character Attributes

One category of additional lot and serial information to track are characteristics of the lot. Some of these characteristics may include lot grade, color, country of origin, place of origin, and recycled content.

The following character attributes have been added as named lot attributes:

Territory_code has been added as a named serial attribute.

You may define up to twenty distinct character attributes for any given lot or serial number that reflects information which your organization captures for an item. This information is stored in the C_ATTRIBUTE1 through C_ATTRIBUTE20 columns on the MTL_LOT_NUMBERS and MTL_SERIAL_NUMBERS tables respectively.

Note that the material status may be controlled at the subinventory, locator, lot, or serial level. Therefore, the material status on the lot or serial number does not behave exactly as other lot or serial attributes. If the material status of the subinventory or locator is more restrictive than the material status of the lot or serial number, then the material status of the subinventory or locator will override the material status of the lot or serial number.

Numeric Attributes

Some industries track numerous dimensions and weights of each lot. Up to ten distinct numeric attributes can be used for any given lot.

The following numeric attributes have been added as named lot attributes:

There is a concurrent program that calculates the age of an existing lot by computing the time from the time it was created to the current date and stores this value. The advantage of this being, if the allocation rule requires some calculation based on age, the value can be straight away used from this calculated field rather than computing the age at the time of performing the allocation or such task. Storing these values ahead of time, to be used in calculations, improves the performance during allocation or wherever the case maybe. The downside to this would be the age may not be quite exact, but again it depends on the frequency of this concurrent program.

It is recommended that the unit of measure (UOM) attributes (length UOM, thickness UOM, volume UOM, and width UOM) for each of the dimension attributes (length, thickness, volume, and width) be implemented together.

The following numeric attributes have been added as named serial attributes:

You may define up to ten distinct number attributes for any given lot or serial number which reflects information that your organization captures for an item. This information is stored in the N_ATTRIBUTE1 through N_ATTRIBUTE10 columns on the MTL_LOT_NUMBERS and MTL_SERIAL_NUMBERS tables respectively.

Attribute Functionality

Oracle Warehouse Management supports forms and APIs to populate, maintain, and use the lot and serial attributes.

Note: The lot and serial attributes are available even if Oracle Warehouse Management is not installed.

Populate Attributes

Default by item number or category which attributes to collect at receipt.

The lot context or serial context of an item specifies which lot or serial attributes need to be maintained for each item. For example, lot controlled food product may include attributes such as best by date, grade, and age, while lot controlled textiles may include attributes such as length, thickness, and style. By specifying a context for the lot and serial attributes, only those attributes which are appropriate for each item can be collected.

Contexts can be assigned to item categories, therefore all lot controlled items in a particular category have the same context. All the categories where you want to assign context assignment should be in the same category set. However, there may be exceptions to the item category, so individual items may be assigned to a context that overrides any item category assignment. Default values for attributes can be specified when configuring the contexts. The currently supported default methods for attributes are constant, current date, previous field, profile option, and SQL statement.

Desktop functionality

Lot and serial attributes need to be populated when new lots and serials are created. If desired, the attributes may be defaulted and/or overridden by the receiver. When you receive against an existing lot, you may view but not update the attributes of the existing lot. The attributes of the material received will be inherited from the attributes of the pre-existing lot.

Populating lot and serial attributes is supported for the following transactions for non-Oracle Warehouse Management inventory organizations:

Mobile functionality

Lot and serial attributes must be populated when new lots and serials are created. If desired, the attributes may be defaulted and overridden. When you receive against an existing lot, the attributes of the material received will be inherited from the attributes of the pre-existing lot.

Populating lot and serial attributes are supporting for the following transactions for non-Oracle Warehouse Management inventory organizations:

Populating lot and serial attributes are supported for the following transactions for Oracle Warehouse Management enabled inventory organizations:

If the Serial Number is generated at the time of shipment you can enter Serial attributes at that time.

Note: There are distinct differences between the receiving process for Oracle Warehouse Management enabled inventory organizations and regular inventory organizations. For inventory organizations, lots and serials may not be specified until the delivery transaction. Therefore, the lot and serial attributes may not be populated until after this time. For Oracle Warehouse Management enabled organizations, this limitation has been lifted. However, the introduction of the LPN functionality changes the business flow substantially. Incoming material is packed into an LPN at receipt. To specify the material being packed into the LPN, the lot and serial numbers are specified at this time. Consequently the lot and serial attributes are specified at this time.

Desktop functionality

The Maintain Lots and Maintain Serial Numbers windows enable authorized personnel to update lot and serial attributes. The View Lot Numbers and View Serial Numbers windows will give non-authorized personnel view-only access to lot and serial attributes. Limiting access is achieved by calling the Lots and Serials forms in query only mode (using the QUERY_ONLY form function parameter). An audit log of changes to lot and serial attributes is NOT stored. However, viewing the attributes populated at receipt of the lot in the Materials Transactions desktop form may indicate whether the attributes have been updated since the original receipt of the lot or serial.

Mobile functionality

You may view lot and serial attributes through the mobile Item Inquiry form. If you wish to update a lot or serial attribute, this maintenance should be performed through the desktop form.

Use Attributes

Picking and Putaway rules may be based on lot and/or serial characteristics such as the country of origin or the age of the material.

Fulfilling sales orders based on lot and serial attributes

If material is manually reserved at sales order entry, you may search for appropriate lots by their characteristics in the Material Workbench. Once the lot with the appropriate characteristics has been located, that specific lot may be reserved. Reservations is not supported for serial numbers. Therefore, fulfilling sales orders based on the serial attributes will need to take place at pick release.

If material is not reserved at sales order entry, the material will be allocated when the sales order pick released. Complex picking rules may be configured to control the characteristics of the lots and serials you use to fulfill each order. For example, you may specify which grade of material each class of customer should receive. Other material allocation requirements could include picking lots with the best by date at least fourteen days from the current date.

Transfer attributes with lot or serial number

Lot and serial attributes are transferred to other inventory organizations within the supply chain, so that the attributes only need to be populated once. However, it is required that the SAME context assignments be defined in all the source and destination organization. Otherwise, there is no automatic way to identify that the first segment of one context is the same information as the first segment in a different context. To aid the requirement of transferring attributes when performing organization transfers, the context mapping can be made common to all organizations, which will result in the attributes always being transferred with the material.

Defaulting lot attributes when lots are split and merged

When a lot is split into multiple new lots, the lot attributes of the new lots are defaulted from the starting lot. You may override the defaulted attributes. When lots are merged into a new lot, the lot attributes of the new lot are defaulted from the lot attributes of the largest lot merged into the new lot. If two lots of the same quantity are merged, the lot attributes of the new lot are defaulted from the first starting lot.

Populating lot and serial attributes during cycle count and physical count

When you perform a cycle count or physical count and have to create a new lot or serial, you will be prompted to enter attributes based on context assignment for that item.

Context Setup

There are two steps to setting up lot and serial attributes. First, the lot and serial contexts must be defined. Contexts are supported by descriptive flexfields, so the setup is identical to the setup for descriptive flexfields. Second, the default context must be assigned to item categories and, if appropriate, items. The reason for this step is that standard descriptive flexfield functionality requires the reference field for the context be on the Transaction form. The Item Category field is not on the Transactions forms. Therefore, this additional piece of functionality was built to drive the context off of the item category.

Define Context

A context (set of attributes to be tracked for a lot or a serial), should be defined using the Segments form for descriptive flexfields, where the descriptive flexfield title is Lot Attribute or Serial Attribute. Different contexts should be defined for each type of item that tracks different groups of attributes. In addition, since default values are defined at the context level, different defaulting behavior will require different contexts.

Each context can have up to forty attributes (ten numeric attributes, twenty character attributes, and ten date attributes). Each attribute must specify which database column the attribute will be stored in. Database types of varchar, number, and date are supported. Each attribute may be required or optional, and can have a default value set based on any of the defaulting types. If any attribute is a required attribute it must have a default value. Finally, a value set must be specified for each attribute. The value set determines the length of the attribute, and the type of validation of the date (no validation, independent validation against a manually defined list of values, or table validation).

Assign Context

You will be prompted to enter the correct group of attributes for each type of item based on the assigned context. You may assign contexts by item category or item number, at the organization level, or globally (common to all organizations). You may assign by categories in any category set. Therefore, the attributes may be driven off of the Inventory category set or a new category set may be created to drive the attributes, but contexts can be assigned to only one category set.

The hierarchy for determining which context will be used is illustrated below:

Context Level Assignment Type
Global Item Category
Global Item
Organization Item Category
Organization Item

For example, the organization level assignment by item will override the organization level assignment by item category and the organization level assignment by item category will override the global level assignment by item, and so on.

You can enable category sets so you can assign items to multiple categories with a category set. You will only be able to select category sets that do not have this feature selected. This is required so a unique context when receiving an item may be derived.

Set Up Lot and Serial Attributes

Setting up lot and serial attributes includes the following tasks:

With Oracle Warehouse Management you can better control a lot item by specifying the following material status lot and serial control attributes:

When you enable lot and serial control for the material status of an item, you can restrict or expand the item's use based on the level of material status control. You enable lot and serial control by selecting Lot and Serial Enabled check boxes on the Inventory tab of the Master Items window.

With Oracle Warehouse Management items, you can also decide whether lots can be split or merged, and whether you want an item to be bulk picked.

Note: To view lot attributes, you must select the lot attributes button on the mobile device before you enter a lot quantity. After you enter the lot quantity, the system process the lot and subtracts the available quantity from the total lot quantity. If you select the lot attributes button after you enter the lot quantity, the system does not recognize the difference between processing the lot and viewing the lot attributes.

Lot and serial attributes track the characteristics of items, based on lot and (or) serial numbers. Descriptive flexfields enable you to configure lot and serial attribute flexfields so that you capture only those lot and serial attributes that you need to maintain. The following figure provides an example of a flexfield defined for a lot attribute called, Chemicals.

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Value sets hold the actual values for a particular segment of a descriptive flexfield. Defining attribute value sets involves setting up the value set that is associated with a particular flexfield segment. For example, the following figures illustrates a value set for the Grade segment. In this case, the value set, Grade Set, includes three grades: Excellent, Average, and Poor.

Note: Before you define the value set for an attribute, you should determine its context requirements, including the types of values required for each of the context segment.

  1. Navigate to the Value Set window.

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  2. Define the value sets for your lot or serial attribute segments. For instructions about how to define value sets, see the Oracle Flexfields User's Guide.

  3. After you finish setting up the value set, navigate to the Values window and enter the actual values for the value set.

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How to Set Up Load and Serial Descriptive Flexfield Contexts

Setting up lot and serial descriptive flexfield contexts involves defining a context for each type of item that will track different groups of attributes. You should define different contexts to do the following:

  1. Navigate to the Descriptive Flexfields Segments.

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  2. In the Title field, query on Lot Attributes to display the context codes that currently exist for lot attributes.

  3. Set up lot and serial descriptive flexfield contexts according to the instructions in the Oracle Flexfields User's Guide.

How to Setup Lot and Serial Descriptive Flexfield Segments

When you configure each attribute for each context, you specify the following:

  1. Navigate to the descriptive flexfields Segments window.

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  2. Enter segment information according to the instructions in the Oracle Flexfields User's Guide.

How to Compile Descriptive Flexfields

After you define your descriptive flexfield, including all of its components, such as segments and values, you must freeze the flexfield definition by selecting the Freeze Flexfield Definition check box. Freezing the flexfield automatically compiles it. However you can compile your flexfield manually, by choosing Compile.

Note: To modify a flexfield, you must clear the Freeze Flexfield Definition check box.

For detailed instructions on compiling descriptive flexfields, see the Oracle Flexfields User's Guide.

Assigning Context Mapping by Item or Item Category

After you compile your flexfield, you need to navigate to Descriptive Flexfield Context Mapping window and assign the attribute context to its associated item category or item. Only categories within one category set can be used in an organization to assign attributes at the category level.

When you assign a context to an item or an item category the following occurs:

Related Topics

Overview of Item Categories, Oracle Inventory User's Guide

Item Category Flexfield Structure, Oracle Inventory User's Guide

Inventory Attribute Group, Oracle Inventory User's Guide

Lot Transactions

Oracle Warehouse Management provides sublot control functionality that enables you to split, merge, and translate lots. Lot splitting enables you to split lots into multiple lots to differentiate between quantities of material that are no longer similar enough to consider as a single lot. You can create a new lot, or child lot, from an old lot, or parent lot. The ability to split lots into child lots allows for more exact inventory lot tracking.

You can also merge multiple lots into a single lot. Lot merging enables you to merge lots that contain identical attributes. You can transfer or change lot attributes in the new or resulting lot.

Lot translation enables you to transform the entire available quantity of a lot into a new lot. The resulting item can be the same as the item of the start lot, or a different item. If you retain the same item, then the system transfers the lot attributes from the starting lot and you can modify them as necessary. If you change the resulting item during translate, and the lot attribute category is the same as the starting lot, then the system copies the lot attributes to the new lot. If the lot attribute category of the new item differs from the starting lot, then the system copies the default attribute values.

You can split, merge, or translate lots for a variety of reasons as material moves through a facility.

Lot genealogy tracks the composition and where used history of a lot through the split, merge, and translate transactions. With lot genealogy, you can track the various transactions that are performed on any given lot. Lot genealogy is useful in product recall situations. Production problems or tampering are examples of when a product recall is required. In a recall situation, a company needs to be able to recall all assembly or final product lots that use a particular component or raw material in the manufacturing process.

Lot Split and Merge

Sublot functionality fundamentally consists of splitting and merging lots to track the genealogy of the lot. You split a lot to create a sublot; therefore, a sublot is a lot that has a child relationship to another lot. Sublots have the same functional support as lots. Oracle Warehouse Management supports an unlimited number of sublot levels.

Lot Splitting Features

Lot splitting enables you to split a quantity of material in to two or more lots. You can perform lot split when a portion of a lot has different characteristics. Lot splitting supports full and partial quantity splits, loose or packed material splits, and autosplit. The system supplies the lot genealogy automatically when you perform a lot split. You cannot split a reserved lot.

Full and Partial Split Support

Lot splitting supports full and partial lot splits. A full lot split enables you to split the entire quantity of a lot into new child lots and ensures that no remaining quantity of the starting lot is missing. A partial lot split splits a partial quantity of a lot into new child lots while leaving the remaining quantity in the parent lot.

Support Splitting Loose and Packed in LPN Material

You can split loose material into loose inventory or pack it in an LPN. You can also split lots within an LPN into loose inventory, within that LPN, or pack it in a new LPN. You can split the lot into an existing LPN or a new LPN.

Support Autosplit and Manual Split

Autosplit enables you to create numerous resulting lots with the same lot attributes. You can perform an autosplit when a lot is split into a large number of resulting lots. To perform an autosplit, you specify the number of resulting lots or the quantity for each lot. When you perform an autosplit, you must split the lot into at least two lots.

When a lot is split into a small number of resulting lots, you can manually split the lot by specifying the resulting lot numbers and lot quantities for each of the resulting lots. You can also specify different lot attributes of the resulting lots.

Lot Attributes

Lot splitting defaults lot attributes of resulting lots from the lot attributes of the starting lot. Users can update the defaulted resulting lot attributes after the resulting lot is specified.

Lot Merging Features

Lot merging enables you to merge multiple existing lots into a new lot, and merge multiple existing lots into an existing lot. You perform merging when you store lots together from multiple inventory locations or you can no longer maintain the identity of each lot. Lot merging supports full and partial quantity merges and loose or packed material merges. Lot genealogy is suppled when you perform a lot merge.

Support Full and Partial Merge

Lot merging supports full and partial lot merges. You use a full lot merge to merge the entire quantity of one or more lots into a new lot or an existing lot. You use a partial lot merge to merge a partial quantity of one or more lots into a new lot or an existing lot, while leaving a remainder quantity in the parent lots.

Support Merging Loose and Packed Material in LPN

You can merge loose material to loose inventory or pack it in an LPN. You can also merge lots within an LPN to loose inventory or within an LPN. When lots in different LPNs are merged, the system consolidates the LPN when you select an existing LPN or generate a new LPN.

Lot Attributes

Lot merging defaults lot attributes to the resulting lot from the starting lot with the largest quantity. If lots of equal quantity are merged, the lot attributes default from the first start merge lot.

Lot Translate Features

Lot translate enables you to translate an existing lot into a new lot. You can perform lot translate when you want to transform the definition and characteristics of an existing lot into a new lot. The system supplies lot genealogy when you perform a lot translate.

Translate into the Same or Different Item

Lot translation enables you to move an existing lot to a new lot. The new lot can belong to the same item as the starting lot, or a different item. You can perform lot translation on the entire available lot quantity.

Support for Translating Loose and Packed Material in an LPN

You can translate a loose lot into loose inventory, or pack it in to an LPN. You can also translate a lot within an LPN to an LPN or into loose inventory.

Lot Attributes

If the resulting item changes during lot translate, and the lot attribute category for the new item is the same as the starting lot, then the system copies the lot attributes to the new lot. If the attribute category for the new item differs from the starting lot, then the system copies the default lot attributes. You can modify the default lot attributes if necessary.

Lot Genealogy

The system creates a lot genealogy transaction whenever you split, merge, or translate a lot. It also stores a reference to the transaction information. Lot genealogy also helps keep track of lot attributes. Lot genealogy includes online inquiry windows that display relationships between parent and child lots that are created during lot splits and merges as well as lot attributes, transaction history, and current on-hand quantities.

Related Topics

Viewing Lot Genealogy, Oracle Inventory User's Guide

Lot Transaction Setup

Lot Split Merge and Translate Setup

You can restrict or enable lot split or merge in two ways:

Item Level Control

The Lot Split Enabled attribute enables you to split lots of the item. You must select this attribute to enable lot splitting for the item.

The Lot Merge Enabled attribute enables you to merge lots for the item. You must select this attribute to enable lot merging for the item.

The Lot Translate Enabled attribute enables you to translate lots for the item. You must select this attribute to enable lot translate for the item.

Lot Level Control

Lot split, lot merge, and lot translate are transaction types. You can disallow these transactions for material statuses that you created. If the lot, locator, or subinventory has a material status that does not allow you to perform a lot split, lot merge, or lot translate, then you cannot perform the lot transaction.

Note: Oracle Warehouse Management does not support lot split or merge for an item that is under lot and serial control, unless the serial number control is at sales order issue.

Lot Genealogy Setup

To view the lot genealogy properly, set the two profile options: INV: Genealogy Prefix or Suffix and INV: Genealogy Delimiter on the site, application, responsibility, or user level. The profile option INV: Genealogy Prefix or Suffix determines how the item and lot number should be displayed in the genealogy tree structure. The two possible settings are Prefix (the lot number is displayed before the item number), and Suffix (the lot number is displayed after the item number). The profile option INV: Genealogy Delimiter determines what should be the delimiter between the item number and the lot number. If the profile options are not set, then when the user views the lot genealogy, it shows NULL on the tree node instead of the lot number.

For Example, in the System Profile Values window, set INV: Genealogy Prefix or Suffix to Prefix and INV: Genealogy Delimiter to “.” on the site level. In the Lot Genealogy Form, the node of the tree will show as L2-003.MR_LC2, where L2-003 is the lot number and MR_LC2 is the item number.

Lot Transaction Examples

Lot Split

Manual Lot Split

During a manual split, neither the number of lots nor the quantity per lot is mentioned; only the split quantity is mentioned. The user can split the lot loose or into an LPN. In this example the starting lot was split into two lots of five each. On each of the lots, one was split loose and the other was split in an LPN.

Auto Lot Split

While performing an auto split, the user mentions either the number of resulting lots or the quantity per lot. For example, if the number of lots are two, then a quantity of 7 was split into two lots of 3.5 per lot. The user can split the lot loose or into an LPN.

Lot Merge

Two different lots of different quantities are merged into a single resulting lot. The resulting lot is packed into an LPN. The total quantity is the sum of both the starting lots.

Implementation

  1. Should I default the context at the global or organization level?

    Contexts may be assigned at the organization level when different organizations in the supply chain wish to track different information regarding a lot and/or serial. For example, a manufacturing plant may need to track more information about a lot and or serial than a sales office. On the other hand, inter-organization transfers of items with lot or serial attributes require that the same context assignments be defined in all the source and destination organization. To aid in this setup, the context mapping can be made common to all organizations. For example, material that is sent back from the sales office might lose the information originally gathered regarding the lot and this information would need to be reentered. In summary, the priority of these two requirements needs to be weighed to determine the optimal setup for your organization's supply chain.

  2. How changeable is the Lot / Serial Attribute setup?

    It is recommended that a detailed analysis be completed regarding which attributes will be tracked for each item or category before receiving the material. In general, disabling lot/serial attributes and adding non-required lot/serial attributes should not pose problems (other than the issue that all existing lots will not have information populated for the new attributes). Problems mainly result from the addition of a required lot/serial attribute once lots/serials exist for that item. Once lots and serial numbers for an item have been defined with a given context, changing that context may result in an error when querying up the lot/serial due to a null value in for a required attribute.

    It is recommended that all the required attributes have default values defined.

  3. What needs to be done before I set up Lot / Serial attributes.

    ICX: Numeric characters profile needs to be set up. For setting up this profile, you should logon as System Administrator, and then go to System Administrator > profile > System to set this values. An example of values for this profile are ICX Numeric Characters ".," which specifies the decimal separator for number fields displayed in the flexfield pop-up window. Similarly, there are other profiles like, ICX: Date language -> "American English", ICX: Date format -> "DD-MON-RRRR", which specifies the formats for date fields in the flexfield pop up window.

Common Problems

  1. I am getting an error while compiling Lot / Serial Attributes Descriptive I flexfield

    If any of the segments, in any context associated with this descriptive flexfield (DFF) have a segment name that is an Oracle reserved word like varchar, number, date, or char, then concurrent request which will create a view for this descriptive flexfield (DFF) will fail. Please check to see non of the segments have Oracle reserved words as segment names.

  2. The Lot or Serial attributes Mobile page gives an unexpected error.

    Please check to see your Lot or Serial attributes descriptive flexfield definition is frozen.

  3. Not prompted for Lot or Serial attributes during transactions or prompted for wrong attributes?

    Here are the steps that should be taken to debug this issue:

    1. Check to see if there is any context assigned to the item that you are transacting in that particular organization. You can do this by opening the Assign Descriptive Flex context mapping window.

    2. Check the context assignment hierarchy.

    3. Check to see if the descriptive flexfield has been compiled properly.

    4. Check to see if the item is lot or serial enabled. Lot and serial attributes do not appear for non lot and serial controlled items.

  4. The lot is not shown in the Lot LOV of the Lot Split, Lot Merge, or Lot Translate window.

    The reasons for this could be the item attribute Lot split enabled, Lot merge enabled or Lot translate enabled is not checked in the Item Master, or the item has a material status that disallows lot split, lot merge or lot translate.

  5. Lot Merge shows the error Lot Belongs to a Different Cost Group. Cannot Merge

    This could happen because you are merging lots with different cost groups and it causes the commingling problem. When doing lot merge, the cost group of all starting lots must be the same.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. Can I assign Lot or Serial attributes to an item that has already been transacted in an organization?

    : You can assign lot or Serial attributes to an item that is already transacted in an organization, but it is very important to do the following steps. If there are any required segments for attributes and the following steps are not performed, then any inventory transaction for existing lots or serials will fail.

    • For Lot attributes go to the Maintain Lot numbers window and query up the existing lots for the item and give values for the required segments.

    • For Serial attributes go to the Maintain Serial Numbers window and query the existing Serial numbers for the item and give values for the required segments.

  2. Can I change the Lot or Serial attribute context of an item that has already been transacted

    Yes, you may changed contexts.

    Warning: Lots or Serials which are already transacted still have the old context and attributes corresponding to the old context.

  3. Can I add new segments to a context that is assigned to an item or item category which has been transacted?

    Adding segments to a context does not pose any problems so long as the segments are optional segments. If you need to add required segments to an existing context, you must update the attributes of the on-hand lots or serials that are already assigned to that context to populate the newly required segments.

  4. Is it possible to have different Lot or Serial attributes contexts for an item which are enabled in different organizations? How will the attributes be transferred for such an item in organization transfer transactions?

    Yes, you can have different Lot or Serial attributes contexts for an item which is enabled in different organizations.

    Mobile: When you transfer a lot or a serial from one organization to a different organization and if the contexts are different, then lot or serial numbers that are transacted will have the default values defined for the context in the destination organization. Then you can go to desk top Maintain Lot/Serial Numbers form and update attribute values if they are different from default values.

    Desktop: Direct organization transfer if the context is different the default attributes will be populated in the destination organization. For inter organization transfer at the time of in-transit shipment receipt on desktop you will be able update or enter new set of attributes.

  5. Who can alter Lot or Serial attributes of an existing lot or serial?

    Anyone with access to the Maintain Lot Numbers form and the Maintain Serial Numbers form can alter lot and serial attributes

  6. How can I configure default values for Lot or Serial attributes?

    Lot and serial attributes functionality is an extension of descriptive flexfield functionality. Please refer to flexfield set up manual for the set up of Lot/Serial attributes descriptive flexfields.

  7. Will Lot or Serial attributes behave differently in inventory organizations Oracle Warehouse Management organizations?

    Lot and serial attributes functionality will be enabled only if you purchase Oracle Warehouse Management Applications. Lot and serial attributes behave same way in inventory organizations & Oracle Warehouse Management organizations.

  8. Are there any seeded Lot or Serial attributes?

    No.

  9. Can lot and serial attributes be integrated with third party software?

    Oracle Warehouse Management sublot functionality includes all of the APIs to integrate with 3rd party systems.

  10. Which segments would appear in the pop up window?

    For a descriptive flexfield with context-sensitive segments, a single structure consists of both the global segments plus the context-sensitive segments for a particular context field value, so for this case all the segments for the global and the segments for the context for flexfield Lot Attributes or Serial Attributes that have been setup for the item or the item category will show up as a pop up window.

  11. Is there a limitation on the number of characters in the prompts for descriptive flexfield segments window?

    The standard length for mobile forms is nine characters. Therefore when configuring the Lot and Serial Attributes descriptive flexfields, it is recommended the length of the window prompt not to exceed nine characters.

  12. Can you add more than one context value for the same flexfield Name (e.g. Lot attributes) and context column (e.g. item) in the Descriptive Flex Context Mapping window for an item?

    No. You can have only one context value for an item.

  13. How are lot split and lot merge and lot and serial genealogy supported in inventory organizations?

    Lot split and merge and are supported in Oracle Inventory and Oracle Warehouse Management organizations and they are available only when Oracle Warehouse Management is installed. Lot and serial genealogy are supported in both Inventory and Oracle Warehouse Management organizations. See View Lot Genealogy, Oracle Inventory User's Guide and Viewing Serial Genealogy, Oracle Inventory User's Guide.

  14. How do you perform a manual split and an autosplit?

    You can perform a manual split and autosplit in the same window. To perform an autosplit, in the start page, enter the Num Lot field or Ea Lot Qty field, then the <Auto Split> button appears. Select <Auto Split>. On the next page, the system generates the resulting lots and calculates the resulting quantity automatically. When you perform an autosplit, you cannot change the resulting quantity for each resulting lot and the starting lot must split into at least two resulting lots.

    To perform a manual split, from, the Start page, skip the NUM Lots and Ea Lot Qty fields, and select <Save / Result>. The Result page opens. In the Result page, you generate the lot and enter the result request manually. You can split the lot in to another lot with manual splitting.

  15. Will the result lot default the LPN from the start lot when you perform a lot split / merge within an LPN?

    When you split lots within an LPN, the resulting lot does not default the LPN from the starting lot. you must specify the LPN if the lot is to be packed in an LPN. The same is true for merging lots.

    For an autosplit, if you split the lot in to three resulting lost and only specify the LPN in the first resulting lot, then select <Done>, only the first resulting lot is packed in the LPN, and the other resulting lots reside in loose inventory.

  16. When should full lot splits be used, and when should partial lot splits be used?

    The ability to split lots into new lots allows for more exact inventory tracking by lot attributes. If some key lot attributes for a quantity within a lot no longer match the attributes of the rest of the lot, then that portion of the lot should be split into a new lot. In this example, should you have a partial quantity lot split, or a full quantity lot split?

    Proposed solution: In this situation you should perform a partial quantity lot split. This places the quantity that has different lot attributes into a new lot. The quantity that still has the same lot attributes remains in the same lot number.

    When new lots are created at WIP Completion, the quantity at the parent lot will usually be fully split into the child lot.

  17. What cost group is associated with the new lot formed during lot split?

    During lot split, the cost group of the parent low is assigned to the new lot.

  18. What lot attributes are carried over to the resulting lot when two lots are merged?

    When two lots are merged the resulting lot takes the attributes from the lot that has the higher quantity. When two lots of the same quantity are merged, the lot attributes of the first parent lot are carried over to the resulting lot.

  19. Can two lots of different items be merged?

    No, this not currently supported.

  20. How can a lot packed in a nested LPN be merged with lots packed in nested LPNs?

    Merging a lot packed in a nested LPN with lots packed in nested LPNs is not supported.

  21. Can you perform split and merge transactions on the desktop?

    No, you must perform split and merge transaction on the mobile user interface.