BIG DECISION - do you want to turn on Item Serialization?

One of my clients whose primary footprint on the supply chain is Oracle EBS was at the crossroads of making a big decision - whether to turn on item serialization or not. This decision has lots of benefits but also comes with a lot of additional responsibilities to enter and track serial numbers. Here is the journey on how we evaluated the item serialization big decision for the client:



What is Serialization?

Oracle Inventory provides complete serial number support for inventory transactions. You can enable serial number control for specific items in your inventory. For items under serial number control, you assign unique serial numbers to individual units and

thereafter reference the same serial numbers each time you perform material transactions. This allows you to have tight control over every unit of every item in your inventory.



Serialization in Inventory & Installed Base tracking design:

Key considerations for the Client:

• Client does not create its own Serial No upon installing the Products and hence Serialization is applicable only to the Inventory ordered for the Project
• Serialization can be selectively turned on at specific item (A Type?) level

Key questions and design considerations presented to Client leadership team:

• Can we use serialization features at selective A type items such as Cameras?
• Can this be enabled using Item category/Catalogue definitions
• Can we model the Product sold (eg product1 product2 etc) as MTL Items (non tangible, but Item Master record with IB tracking enabled)?
• Can we define/track Client Serial No at that level?
• Is that scalable to future design of serialization turned on at lower levels?
• How does this get IB tracking benefits and for maintenance/upselling?

Based on the above framework and many deep dive sessions later, the client decided to turn on serialization only to key 'A' level high value items to begin with. This enabled them to adapt slowly to best industry practices and also have a scalable design to turn on serialization for 'B' and 'C' level items in the future.