Traceability

Lot and expiry traceability: the difference between knowing and guessing

Lot traceability sounds like a compliance checkbox, and it is one, but the real reason it matters is simpler: it turns a write-off into a warning. Without it, an expired product is discovered when it can no longer be sold. With it, it shows up on a dashboard weeks earlier — with time to sell it, return it, or pull it with some margin left.

The model is easy to describe and easy to get wrong: every located unit carries its lot and expiry date, and that data travels with it through every transfer — from receiving to reserve, from reserve to picking. If the data gets dropped at one of those transfers, traceability stops working exactly where it's needed most, which is after the product has already moved a few times.

In Rowan WMS the traceability dashboard classifies every lot into three states — expired, expiring soon, fine — plus a fourth one almost nobody designs on purpose: no date on record. That fourth state is the one that actually tells you whether the system is being used correctly, because it’s the difference between "nothing has expired" and "we don’t know."