What is Lot Control?

Lot control ensures that each lot of inventory that moves throughout a warehouse or in production is tracked. This is done by assigning unique lot numbers to lots that are received, stored, or shipped from the warehouse or are produced as finished or intermediate products. Done correctly, strict lot control can enable manufacturers to adhere to strict regulatory guidelines, carefully and efficiently manage recalls, and minimize waste throughout a warehouse.

What is Catch Weight Management?

For many food manufacturers, products that naturally vary in weight are sold by the unit but priced by the pound. For example, five packages of chicken breasts all weigh a different amount and therefore will often be priced based on that variable weight, or catch weight. During production, catch weight items are weighed, recorded, and labeled either manually or using a software system. The labels include unique identifiers (often in the form of a barcode) that include important information like lot number, catch weight, and serial number.

Managing catch weight enables manufacturers to:

• Bill customers for the exact weight of items in a case rather than the estimated weight or number of units.
• Track a finished good for recall management.

Lot control with Deacom ERP provides manufacturers with the ability to record, manage, and report on lots throughout the entire supply chain and from a single login. Native to the core ERP system, the track and trace functionality records every transaction associated with a lot which includes who made the transaction and when. In traditional ERP environments, different data points may live in various, outside software systems and need to be synced together. This can hinder the speed and accuracy needed to execute proper lot control transactions. By keeping all functionality and data within a single system, Deacom users are able to gain more accurate inventory visibility in real-time.

Maintain Regulatory Compliance

Adhere to strict regulatory requirements for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Safe Quality Food Institute (SQF), European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), European Medicines Agency (EMA), Health Canada, and other institutions. With backward (lot explosion) and forward (lot implosion) lot traceability, users can generate a detailed and accurate audit trail when necessary. The flexibility of the ERP software also allows for manufacturers to embrace and act on new regulations quickly.

Manage Recalls Quickly

Easily understand which ingredients went to a particular production run and who received those specific finished products. Or, if a customer complaint is the source of the issue, understand which production lots or vendor lots are affected as well as other customers who may need a warning. This data can help identify the root cause of issues quickly and efficiently across the supply chain.

Minimize Waste

Carefully manage expiration dates through lot tracking to ensure that first expired-first out (FEFO) or first in-first out (FIFO) rules are always followed.

Optimize Inventory

Use Material Requirements Planning (MRP) capabilities to ensure items with specific quality control values are in stock and available for production when they are needed.

Prevent Issuing and Picking Errors

Ensure raw material lots that are picked, weighed, and dispensed for a batch are controlled electronically through scale connections and scanning. Deacom ERP also helps prevent workers from picking lots that do not conform to customer-specific quality control requirements.

Catch weight with Deacom ERP allows manufacturers to record, manage, and report an item’s variable weight from a single system either manually or, more commonly, automatically. Unlike other ERP providers, Deacom has developed its own catch weight management functionality, called AutoFinisher, which is native to the ERP system, eliminating dependencies on external software systems, customizations, and data synchronizations. This structure uniquely provides manufacturers with drill-down capabilities into two levels of catch weight: lot level and serialized level.

Automate the Catch Weight and Labeling Process

Through reliable API technology, Deacom ERP can integrate with scales so manufacturers can automate the finishing process within Deacom. This includes automatically generating barcodes and labels that include catch weight, lot number, and serial number data in less than one second. Imported customer-provided serial numbers can also be used. Deacom users can then palletize lots by creating a unique ID to help facilitate the movement and sale of the pallet.

Serialize at Unlimited Levels

Leverage unlimited layers (finished product, box, case, pallet, etc.) of serialization to meet regulatory and customer requirements.

Ensure Data Accuracy and System Speed

All data, including what is captured during the catch weight process, is kept and managed in Deacom’s centralized ERP system. By avoiding the need to push large volumes of data between software systems, companies are assured optimal data accuracy without sacrificing system performance speed.

Control Variances 

Variance reporting can be done in real-time to help manufacturers understand how much “giveaway” they are doing. If a catch weight exceeds customer specifications, companies can confidently make machine adjustments to help prevent wasting too much product.

Track Lots Throughout the Supply Chain

The serialization data that is generated during the catch weight process takes lot tracking and inventory visibility to a higher level. When used with Deacom’s built-in warehouse management system, users can track lots forward and backward throughout the supply chain while also gaining a detailed understanding of their inventory in real-time.

Adhere to Thresholds

Weight thresholds and tolerances can be set in Deacom ERP to ensure customer requirements are always met. If a captured weight falls outside of those predetermined parameters, the ERP system will flag it so actions can be taken to fix it immediately.

Maintain Production Offline

If a network connection is unavailable, Deacom ERP will continue to process job finishes and generate labels so production schedules and speed are not interrupted.