Inventory

Parts inventory is how you track parts at your facilities. Any location can store quantities of any item from your parts catalog.

Inventory is the second step in the parts workflow as parts move toward becoming a production asset:

List all inventory

Inventory can be viewed by part or by location on the inventory page.

You can drill down for each area to understand the number of units of each part at each location.

Transferring units

Units can be transferred between inventory locations. For example, you may move 25 units of part LDR-4.1 from your Chicago warehouse to your Milwaukee operations center. Unlike shipments, transfers take effect immediately.

Click the "Transfer" button to transfer parts inventory. Clicking "Transfer" on a part or a location will pre-populate the window with the corresponding part or location information.

Unlike shipments, transfers do not introduce new units at the location. Instead, they decrement units from one location and send them to another. For that reason, you cannot transfer more units from a location than are already present at that location.

Adjusting inventory

Unit counts can be adjusted for each inventory location. For example, you may discover 5 units of part LDR-4.1 are missing from your Chicago warehouse and need to adjust down, or discover 5 units are present in your Milwaukee operations center and need to adjust up.

Click the "Adjust" button to adjust parts inventory. Clicking "Adjust" on a part or a location will pre-populate the window with the corresponding part or location information.

Adjusting up

Adjusting inventory up will introduce new units at the location. Unlike shipments, the inventory does not come as part of a shipment associated with a PO and a source. Units are simply materialized at the locations.

Upwards adjustments are usually based on a true-up or reconciliation of prior inventory tracking errors. Adjustment upwards automatically creates a new batch to track the adjustment.

Adjusting down

Adjusting inventory down will remove existing units from the location. Unlike transfers, the inventory does not got to another location. Units simply disappear from the location. For that reason, you cannot transfer more units from a location than are already present at that location.

Downwards adjustments are usually based on discarding inventory, or as part a true-up or reconciliation of prior inventory tracking. Adjustment downwards automatically removes units from batches based on the first-in first-out (FIFO) batch tracking.

Batching and traceability

Behind the scenes, Hardfin tracks the batch that each unit came from. Each group of units from the same batch, at the same location, is tracked as an inventory lot. Hardfin follows the first-in first-out (FIFO) model of batch tracking. As parts are used — whether they are transferred, adjusted, built into assemblies, or used for replacements — the oldest units are considered to be used first.

For example, for new part LDR-4.1:

• 100 units are received at the Chicago Warehouse on January 1. They are assigned batch #0001.

• 25 units are transferred to the Milwaukee Operations Center on January 5. These come from batch #0001.

• 200 more units are received at the Chicago Warehouse on January 23. They are assigned batch #0002.

• 120 units are transferred from the Chicago Warehouse to the Milwaukee Operations Center on January 27. Of these, 75 will come from batch #0001 and 45 will come from batch #0002.

Summary table for part LDR-4.1 batch

Each group of units from the same batch, at the same location, is tracked as an inventory lot. A lot always corresponds to the combination of a location and a batch. If batches of units of the same part are split up across locations, they become multiple inventory lots. If a location has units of the same part from multiple batches, they become multiple inventory lots. This ensures that materials traceability is always maintained for accounting, audit, and regulatory purposes.

So in the above example, the month ends with 155 units in a lot at the Chicago Warehouse (from batch #0002), with 100 units in a lot at the Milwaukee Operations Center (from batch #0001), and with 45 units in another lot at the Milwaukee Operations Center (from batch #0002).