Oracle Inventory provides complete serial number support for inventory transactions. You can enable serial number control for specific items. For items that are under serial number control, you assign unique serial numbers to individual units and reference the same serial numbers each time you perform a transaction on an individual unit. This enables you to have tight control over every unit of every item in your inventory. If you set up serial control at sales order issue, then at sales order issue, you can assign serial numbers only when you perform a shipment transaction in Oracle Shipping Execution.
Oracle Inventory provides the profile option INV: Restrict Receipt of Serials to control the following validations for serial numbers that are used in Oracle Work in Process:
Validation of serialized components:
If you enable the profile option, then you cannot receive the serial number through purchase order receipt, miscellaneous receipt, or account alias receipt, if that same serial number has been issued to Oracle Work In Process.
Validation of serialized end-assemblies:
If you enable the profile option, then you cannot complete an end assembly item into Oracle Inventory, for a discrete job, repetitive schedule, flow schedule, and work order-less completion, if that same serial number has a state of issued out of stores.
You can use the Serial Numbers window to update supplier information that is associated with your serial numbers. You can view all serial numbers that you created in your current organization and the state and supplier lot information that is associated with your serial numbers. See Maintaining Serial Number Information.
If you issue items with a serial number control type of dynamic entry at inventory receipt or predefined, then you must choose from the list of serialized units that you have already received into inventory. If you issue items with a serial number control type of dynamic entry at sales order issue, then you must assign serial numbers when you ship the item against a sales order. See Assigning Serial Numbers, Overview of Material Control, and Overview of Shop Floor Control.
Oracle Inventory supports cycle counting of items under serial number control.
Oracle Inventory includes the serial numbers of the items to count in your physical inventory when it generates tags. You must assign serial numbers to all items under serial number control for which you enter counts in the Physical Inventory Tag Counts window. See Entering and Voiding Physical Inventory Tag Counts.
Note: The following behavior is valid only for serial controlled items whose serial control generation is defined as At Receipt or Predefined. (These values are set on the Master Item window > Inventory tab.)
In Oracle Inventory, suppose you have a sales order with multiple lines including a line with a serial-controlled item. (Also, at the organization level, the parameter Allocate Serial Numbers is set to No. This value is set on the Organization Parameters window > Revision, Lot, Serial And LPN tab.) If pick release is run with auto allocate and auto pick confirm set to Yes, then the pick release completes with a warning. All the lines will be processed except the line containing the serial control item. An error message appears in the pick release log. For the serial records, you then need to manually allocate the serial number in the Transact Move Orders window and then transact the move order line.
When you receive into inventory a completed assembly with a serial number control type of dynamic entry at inventory receipt or predefined, then you must assign a serial number in the WIP Completion Transaction window in Oracle Work in Process. You either accept the default serial number or enter another valid one. See Overview of Assembly Completions and Returns.
You can return serialized units to the supplier in the Enter Returns and Adjustments window. Oracle Inventory updates the serial number information with the purchase order number and transaction date of the return so that the location of the serialized unit is known.
When you receive replacement units, you can issue new serial numbers. When you receive repaired units, you should reference the original serial numbers so that Oracle Inventory can properly update the existing serial numbers. See Entering Returns.
You can purge all transaction information about serial numbers from your current organization. Note that the transactions must occur within closed accounting periods. See Purging Transaction History.