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@KitaYama It's not been a waste of time, it's been an interesting discussion, but personally I think you need to consider the physical process, and make the IT solution work with the process. Maybe the process is a) record the materials used in each production batch and b) use older materials first, but a) outranks b), which comes back to @Pat Hartman and @CJ_London mentioning simple manual processes such as colour coding the batches to make a) work and b) relatively easy to achieve without needing any fancy IT process.
The thing is, how will you tell when a product fails which part was actually used in the production. To me it's not really about your IT system recording the usage as officially being batch 1, rather than batch 2, it's about you can tell the difference between an item from batch 1 and an item from batch 2. One way is to turn this around, and let the stores people pick the product you specify, and then they record the batch tag they actually picked. If you think there should still be 100kg of batch 1 left, but the stores have wrongly issued the last 100kg in a different production run, they will never be able to locate the product you want them to use.
Is there a real reason you need to use a particular consignment of item 1234 in a particular order other than for your IT system to "use" the oldest items first.
So it's not a stores process you need, so much as a batch management/control process that works alongside the stores process. For each batch you record accurately the products used in the batch without this being part of the inventory management at all. You requested 8 items of 1238, and the stock record just records 8 items issued, but the batch record for Batch A124/0912 records specific information about the 8 items that were actually picked. You could do this by barcoding the goods inwards for instance, so that the stores clerks can record the items in the batch by simply scanning the bar codes.
I am sure this is what happens when you register a washing machine you purchase. The serial number is on a plate on the washing machine in a sealed box. There is absolutely no way you know which washing machine ended up with the customer until the customer returns his warranty card to tell you. You know the batch of watching machines you made, and gradually you mark them off as the customer identifies them. And if he doesn't bother to tell you because there wasn't a maintenance issue, there's still not an issue. And I'm pretty sure the serial number management process is not part of the production process. It's more of a free standing after sales activity.
The thing is, how will you tell when a product fails which part was actually used in the production. To me it's not really about your IT system recording the usage as officially being batch 1, rather than batch 2, it's about you can tell the difference between an item from batch 1 and an item from batch 2. One way is to turn this around, and let the stores people pick the product you specify, and then they record the batch tag they actually picked. If you think there should still be 100kg of batch 1 left, but the stores have wrongly issued the last 100kg in a different production run, they will never be able to locate the product you want them to use.
Is there a real reason you need to use a particular consignment of item 1234 in a particular order other than for your IT system to "use" the oldest items first.
So it's not a stores process you need, so much as a batch management/control process that works alongside the stores process. For each batch you record accurately the products used in the batch without this being part of the inventory management at all. You requested 8 items of 1238, and the stock record just records 8 items issued, but the batch record for Batch A124/0912 records specific information about the 8 items that were actually picked. You could do this by barcoding the goods inwards for instance, so that the stores clerks can record the items in the batch by simply scanning the bar codes.
I am sure this is what happens when you register a washing machine you purchase. The serial number is on a plate on the washing machine in a sealed box. There is absolutely no way you know which washing machine ended up with the customer until the customer returns his warranty card to tell you. You know the batch of watching machines you made, and gradually you mark them off as the customer identifies them. And if he doesn't bother to tell you because there wasn't a maintenance issue, there's still not an issue. And I'm pretty sure the serial number management process is not part of the production process. It's more of a free standing after sales activity.
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All metal parts are linked to a "heat" (what they call what comes out of that big vat you see at the steel plant where they pour out the red hot liquid metal into an ingot that is then shipped to someone to build something out of. Other type of parts are tracked but not all of them. The application I designed also managed testing. For inexpensive components, we usually did full destructive testing. We stretched it until it broke. We bent it back and forth until it broke, etc. For rotating parts, which were much more expensive, we did things like ultrasounds in a liquid bath and x-rays.
