Inventory and Material Tracking
What the exam tests
This domain tests lot and serial traceability, material status, location control, issue and backflush logic, cycle counting, and genealogy from receipt through shipment.
Core rules
- Lot control groups material by a common production or receipt event; serial control identifies individual units. Both support traceability but at different granularity.
- Material statuses such as released, quarantine, hold, and rejected govern usability. Location accuracy is part of inventory accuracy.
- FIFO consumes oldest stock first; FEFO consumes earliest-expiring stock first. FEFO matters for perishable or shelf-life-controlled material.
- Backflush deducts components from production confirmation, usually based on BOM quantity times reported output. Scrap and rework can change expected consumption.
- Genealogy must support forward and backward tracing: which finished goods contain a lot, and which lots were used in a finished good.
Worked example
A BOM requires 2 components per unit. The order reports 100 good units and 5 scrapped units that also consumed components. Expected backflush = (100 + 5) x 2 = 210 components, not 200. If the system deducts only 200, inventory is overstated by 10 and the discrepancy appears at cycle count. Reasoning: backflush follows actual consumption events, including scrap that used material.
Traps
- Assuming backflush is always exact; it depends on BOM accuracy and scrap handling.
- Treating a location move as a quantity change.
- Building genealogy only backward; recall response needs forward tracing.
- Ignoring unit-of-measure conversion between purchase, stock, and consumption units.