Business Challenges
In many business environments, inventory data is not accurate, because real-time updates on inventory movements are not available. Staff ship, receive, and move inventory within a plant with visibility into the results of these transactions often being poor, resulting in:
• Obsolete inventory because the floor or warehouse was not aware that product was available for shipment
• More inventory than necessary because the system did not have a record of inventory being available and as such more product is produced than is needed
• Orders being fulfilled later than needed because you did not know that you already had part or all of the product available
In addition, the spread of counterfeit goods—or knock-offs as they are more commonly called—has become global in recent years. Copied goods infringe upon the rights of the holder of a trademark by displaying a trademark that is either identical to a protected trademark or by using an identification that you cannot distinguish from the original trademark. Serialization at multiple levels can aid in distinguishing the true product from counterfeit product. The use of a serial number of a product—for the unit/pack/case—provides for the identification of that product at a unique level. Serialization typically includes human-readable serial numbers; so, serial numbers that are not valid for a product can indicate fraud. Or, two packages with the same serial number can indicate that the product is not aligned with what is sold.
For ePedigree requirements, systems must capture identification data and exchange the data with their business partners. The data collection is required to start at either product receipt or the production line. After the goods have been produced and packaged, various material handling events can occur before goods are shipped such as transfers or repackaging. The system must track any sort of material handling event before goods are shipped toward the next trading partner in the supply chain.
Previously, QAD EE did not provide the ability to track and trace mass serialization at units of sale and shipping units, independent from lot tracking and tracing functions, and in a way that multi-level serialized packaging structures could be aggregated and controlled throughout inventory transactions.
Users could not define different packaging types as bill of packaging structures by item, origin, or destination during inbound or outbound processing, or during production receiving processes of packaged materials.
QAD EE did not provide a mechanism to define serial ID formats that pertain to various standards to uniquely identify packs. Further, because assigned IDs are regulated by customer or order so that the life cycle of IDs starts before goods are received, there was no way to book serial IDs for a customer or order.