You must assign serial numbers whenever you receive items under serial number control into inventory. If an item is under Predefined control, you can choose from the list of predefined serial numbers for that item. If an item is under dynamic entry At inventory receipt, you can choose from a predefined list of serial numbers or enter any serial number, depending on the uniqueness control for your organization. You can create and assign serial numbers individually or as a range to speed up data entry. If your item is under dynamic entry At sales order issue, you can assign serial numbers only when you perform a shipment transaction in Oracle Shipping Execution.
Once you assign a serial number to an item, the combination of the serial number and the item is an entity known as a serialized unit. From that point on, Oracle Inventory tracks all movements and maintains the following information for each serialized unit:
Receipt or Ship Date: The date on which you last performed a material transaction for your serialized unit. Material transactions update this information when you move your serialized unit.
Serial State: Oracle Inventory assigns one of the following states to your serialized unit:
Defined but not used
Resides in inventory
Issued out of inventory
Resides intransit
Location: The organization, subinventory, and locator in which the serialized unit currently resides. Material transactions update this information when you transfer the serialized unit.
Revision Level: The revision of the item when you assign the serial number to the unit.
Lot Number: During material transactions, you first specify the lot number and then the serial number. Oracle Inventory tracks the lot from which a specific serialized unit originates.