Material Shelf Life: Stock Exists, but It Expires Before Production Starts

The stock report shows enough material for next week's orders. Purchasing sees no shortage.

The planner moves production three days later. One reserved batch expires before the new start date. The inventory quantity is unchanged, but the order now lacks usable supply.

For materials with limited shelf life, availability depends on a date and a purpose. Physical stock, quality release and remaining life must be checked together.

Check the date of consumption

Consider a hypothetical plan made on Monday. Batch A contains 300 kg and expires at the end of Friday. Batch B contains 250 kg and remains valid for another month.

Thursday's order needs 200 kg. The following Tuesday's order needs 250 kg. Assume both batches are released and otherwise suitable, and expiry is assessed at consumption.

Allocate 200 kg from A to Thursday. Batch B can cover Tuesday's 250 kg. The remaining 100 kg in A needs another valid use before expiry; it cannot cover Tuesday just because it appears on the report.

FEFO works within the eligibility rules

FEFO means first expired, first out: eligible batches with the earliest expiry are used first. It differs from FIFO, which follows receipt order.

Eligibility comes first. A batch may be blocked, reserved, unsuitable for a customer or short of the required remaining life. Those conditions can rule it out even when its expiry is later than the consumption date.

A reschedule can create a new shortage

Move Thursday's 200 kg requirement to Monday of the next week. Batch A is now expired. Batch B has 250 kg, but Tuesday already needs those 250 kg.

The two orders together need 450 kg of eligible material, so the shortfall is 200 kg. A previous allocation should be checked again whenever the consumption date changes.

Do not extend shelf life as an administrative fix. Any retest or extension must follow the approved technical and quality procedure.

Record the conditions that make stock usable

Keep batch identity, expiry, release status and reservation visible. Where relevant, record the customer's minimum remaining-life requirement and the date on which it is assessed.

For process manufacturing, distinguish ingredient expiry from finished-product expiry. A finished batch may have its own shelf-life rules and storage conditions.

The existing articles on inventory states and incoming quality explain other reasons stock may be unavailable.

Test your batch rules in the demo

factory.online supports batch-level inventory. Ask the team to demonstrate your exact shelf-life, reservation and quality rules before relying on a proposed allocation. Confirm how those rules interact with a changed production date.

Book a demo with two batches of different expiry dates and two open orders. Move one order and check whether the available quantity still tells the truth.