Byproducts are the component items that are included in Bills of Materials or Shop Orders that have a negative quantity. These items are produced due to the assembly of the top level item in the shop order, and they are put into inventory at the end of the assembly process. Typically a byproduct is a part that is removed from the top level item being built and replaced with a similar component. A good example of a byproduct might be a valve solenoid (a 24 volt valve is produced by taking a 12 volt valve, and replacing the 12 volt solenoid with a 24volt solenoid. In this case, the top level item would be the 24volt valve, the components would be a 12 volt valve with the solenoid, and a 24 volt solenoid, and the byproduct would be the “extra” 12 volt solenoid that would be returned to stock.
Since byproducts are normally produced by the assembly process, the serial numbers for these items may not be known until you physically assemble the goods being used.
Once you are able to identify the serial numbers of any serialized byproducts for a shop order, the byproduct serial numbers are entered by
• Selecting the Serial Numbers Option in the Shop Order Management program. This option displays the serial numbers for the top level items on the shop order (you may not specify the serial numbers for any components or byproducts until you have created the serial records for the top level item being built).
• Highlighting (selecting) the top level serial record that the component is associated with and selecting the Expand option to display the Shop Order Serial Number Linker. This program displays the serialized components and byproducts included on the shop order.
• Highlighting the byproduct item number in the Shop Order Serial Number Linker and selecting the Expand option to display the Shop Line Serial Number Linker. The Shop Line Serial Number Linker displays the serial numbers that have been entered for the byproduct that is associated with the selected top level serial number. The top portion of the program displays the item, description and quantity of the byproduct that is required for the selected top level serial record (please note: this quantity is the quantity associated with the selected top level serial number, it is not the total quantity of the byproduct from the shop order.
• Using the Insert option to input the serial number for the byproduct. When a byproduct item is selected in the Shop Line Serial Number linker and the insert key is pressed, the system displays a prompt object and it prompts you to “Enter serial number to go back to stock. At this point, you should input the appropriate serial number from the byproduct and use the OK button to link the byproduct serial number to the top level item. As you input the serial number for the byproduct, the system creates a serial history record with a status of “P” (in production), and it creates a type BP (byproduct) serial history record to record the fact that the byproduct serial number was created. Please note that the system will display an error message if the serial number being input for the byproduct already exists (it should not if it was included in another item). Only one instance of each item/serial combination can exist in the Serial Master file.