Do most folks just use the lot number supplied by the supplier as their lot number? Or do you combinine it with something of your own?
For example, say we buy custom PCBs and the board house provides their lot number on the CofC supplied with the shipment. But its not uncommon for the board house to make qty’s for multiple of our releases.
Like if we had a PO for 1000 pieces, split over 4 release (each a month a part). The board house might make 500, calling them all Lot 101. Then ship us 250 (of Lot 101) this month. Next month they ship us another 250 (also from Lot 101).
If we use just their lot number, there’s no way to tell which receipt they were from (the first or second month).
If we add a suffix to their Lot number (say YYWW), we’d have some inventory with lot 101-2105 and others of 101-2109.
Would depend on your end goal. If you want to track for defect from MFG then use their lot. If you want to track for FIFO then maybe consider their lot in MFG Lot and generate lots of your own for internal processing.
We generate a new lot for everything coming (that we lot track) in so from a user perspective the format and familiarity is the same no matter the vendor.
The main need for this lot tracking is for ATEX (equipment for Explosive Atmospheres). If one of our suppliers informed us that their Lot XYZ was determined to be not to spec, we would need to be able to determine what jobs - and really the Finished Goods S/N’s - that parts from that lot ended up in.
How do you cross reference the supplier’s lot number with your own internally generated one?
We don’t use S/N but my understanding is it can create some administration nightmares but someone else would have to comment on that. The only headache we gained from Lots is you can’t backflush them, but honestly in the end that’s probably for the best IMHO lol!
We use their lot number because it matches what is on the manufacturer’s C of C. If a lot number does not exist, we use their packing slip number. If the packing slip number doesn’t exist, we use the first two characters of the supplier’s name plus the date the product was received as the lot number.
@ckrusen Have you looked at PCID? I haven’t looked at it but I’m told that it will serialize cartons coming in so you could see this was carton 1, this was carton 2 and so forth. If that’s the way it works, then you should know by that which cartons go with which jobs.
This is something our old system did, so we knew the order of the cartons coming in the door, not just based on lot numbers. Then they used carton 1 first, etc.(issued to jobs that way).
Thanks, but that wouldn’t work as there might be a mix of lots in a single box. The suppliers packing slip might say “100 of P/N ABC-123, Rev B”, and have two accompanying CofC’s. One for 35, stating Lot 101, and another for 65 stating lot 102. The 35 for lot 101 will be marked as such. Same for the 65 from lot 102.
