Recalls happen on a daily basis in almost every industry. A quick glance at FDA's announcements we find the following major recalls in the past week:
BABYRIDE ( 09C003000 ) (Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EST)
PIRELLI ( 09T012000 ) (Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EST)
DUCATI ( 09V365000 ) (Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EST)
IMI Cornelius Recalls Juice Dispensers Due to Fire Hazard (Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:00:00 GMT)
Price Rite 25 Ct Beef Bouillon is Being Voluntarily Recalled Due to Allergy Alert(Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:11:00 EST)
A poorly handled recall can be extremely damaging to a company. If not enough products are recalled, there is a chance that potentially risky item can still put customers at risk. If too many products are called, it can incur significant added cost to the company. Furthermore, a slow response to crisis would be damaging to company brand and could even result in lawsuits. This is where genealogy comes in handy.
Genealogy is often one of the less mentioned topics of logistics planning, but nonetheless it is an important one for the reasons given above. In short, genealogy is a tool that captures and maintains product composition history. In this post, we'll discuss the two general forms of genealogy in the Warehouse Management System (WMS) and put it in context of how genealogy can be useful.
Lot Genealogy
The most commonly genealogy in warehouse operations is in the form of "Lot Genealogy". Lot genealogy tracks the composition and where used history of a lot through split, merge and move. WMS automatically logs these transactions performed on any given lot and displays them in a tree-like structure. Lot genealogy is particularly useful in product recall situations. As an example, lot genealogy can be used when a company issues a recall for all finished goods containing a tainted lot of supplier raw material.
Serial Genealogy
Serial genealogy is the complimentary version of lot genealogy commonly used for discrete manufacturing. Serial genealogy is recorded upon job assemblies when the operator enters the generated serial numbers for each assembly. Serial genealogy works seamlessly with lot genealogy in the case of lot -> serial transactions. The ability to track individual item is useful in the case of asset maintenance and returns. As an example, it is possible to look up a returned faulty return product's serial number to compile a list of components and assemblies.
Genealogy in E-Business Suite tracks in more ways than serial and lot genealogy, and can be applicable in more scenarios than return or recall. This post merely touches two out of the many ways it can potentially benefit your organization. As traceability and accountability becomes more important in industries like consumer goods and pharmaceutical, genealogy is likely to become a focus of the next generation logistics processes.
