A Product in OriginsNext is a tracked unit of real stock that moves through your supply chain, identified by an id such as PID. or SGTIN. In many industries Products are also called inventory, materials, animals or goods. Every Product is an instance of a Product Template, which is the catalogue definition (also called the SKU or Material) that says what the Product is. The Product Template lives in the Registry; the Product is a real instance of it.
Identifiable or Bulk
Each Product has a Type of either Identifiable or Bulk, and this changes how you view its history:
Identifiable: the Product is tracked as distinct, individually identified units. Its history is read as an event-by-event Journey, the ordered list of Events recorded against it.
Bulk: the Product is tracked as a quantity (a mass) held at a Location, not as separate units. A Bulk Product does not show an event-by-event Journey. You read its position and history instead from its Inventory position and Product Movements, which use mass-balance accounting to show how much of the volume is backed by Evidence.
To read an Identifiable Product's history, see How do I track the journey of a Product through Events? To read a Bulk Product's history, see How do I read a bulk product's inventory position and movements?
What a Product records
As Events are recorded against it, a Product carries the following information:
A current owner, custodian and location.
A quantity (with a unit of measure) and optionally a count of units.
A generation, which tracks its place in a lineage across generations.
Any linked Sales Orders or Purchase Orders the Product is allocated to.
Lifecycle status
A Product's lifecycle status shows where it is in its life. It can be one of the following:
Status | What it means |
Active | The Product exists and is in circulation. |
Inactive | The Product is not currently active in the supply chain. |
Consumed | The Product has been used up, for example as an input to a Transformation. |
Recalled | The Product has been recalled. |
Decommissioned | The Product has been removed from circulation. |
Sold | The Product has been sold. |
Products are created and changed by Events
You do not add Products directly. A Product is created, and its owner, custodian, location, quantity and status are all changed, by recording Events against it. This is why a Product's journey is simply its ordered list of Events.
To see how Products come into being, see How do I create a Product? and What is an Event?