Traceability is only as good as the moment it was captured. A lot number written on a clipboard and keyed in at the end of a shift is a reconstruction, and reconstructions are what fail audits. The goal is a record created where the material was actually consumed, by the person who consumed it.
FactoryBridge captures that record on the shop floor and writes it to NetSuite as it happens.
When an operator issues a component against an operation, the fields resolve in order and each one narrows the next:
The sequence is the control. An operator cannot issue a lot that is not in the bin they selected, because the bin list was built from the lot. Components with no lot tracking skip to bin, status and quantity; components with neither take a quantity alone.
Backward tracing — what went into this finished lot — comes from the issue records against each operation of the work order: component line, quantity, lot, bin and status. Forward tracing — where did this raw lot end up — is the same data read the other way, since every issue names the lot it drew from.
Outputs are covered too. Co-products and by-products are recorded against a specific completion with their own lot, bin, inventory status and expiry date, so a run that yielded three products yields three traceable lots rather than one and a note.
Attaching lot detail to the completion rather than the work order keeps partial builds separable. Two completions from one work order carry their own inputs, outputs and times — which is exactly the granularity a recall question needs.
Material that was consumed but not planned, or planned but not consumed, is the usual hole in a traceability story. Variance between planned and actual usage must be allocated against real inventory before the entry will submit — so the difference is accounted for rather than written off silently.
Every issue, completion and yield entry is attributed to an operator and timestamped in a tenant-wide audit log, filterable by module, action type, operator, work order and date range, and exportable to CSV. When someone asks who consumed lot X and when, the answer is a filter rather than an investigation.
Whether an expiry date is mandatory for lot-managed items is a tenant setting. With it enabled, expiry is required on completion, co-yield and positive yield variance; with it disabled the field still appears but submission does not block on it. Turning it on is the single fastest way to close a traceability gap in a food or pharmaceutical operation.
See NetSuite MES for the execution layer as a whole, NetSuite batch manufacturing for formula-driven production, or food & beverage and pharmaceutical for the industries where this is usually non-negotiable.
Explore FactoryBridgeNo. Items, lots, bins and inventory statuses are NetSuite records, read live and written back. There is no second inventory database to reconcile.
The list is populated from NetSuite inventory for that component. A missing lot means it is not on hand in a bin visible to that location — an inventory question rather than a FactoryBridge one.
Yes. Issue Components stays available on the post-run action list alongside Enter Completion, so material can be reconciled after the fact.
Yes. Where the required quantity exceeds what one lot or bin holds, the operator issues what is available and adds further rows to draw from other lots or bins. If your process requires the full quantity before completion, that has to be enforced procedurally today.