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 Checking and Calculating the Shelf Life Expiration Date

Use

Batches of materials that may no longer be used or sold after a certain time period are normally assigned a shelf life expiration date (SLED). This function calculates the SLED from the total shelf life and the production date during the following procedures:

  • At goods receipt (GR)

  • Upon automatic goods movements

If a total shelf life is not specified, you must manually enter the SLED in the goods receipt document.

Note Note

The term shelf life expiration date (SLED) is predominantly used in the pharmaceutical industry and food industry. In the chemical industry, the term expiration date is used as a synonym.

End of the note.

Integration

The graphic below shows where the SLED, total shelf life and production date are entered and saved.

Prerequisites

You must activate the automatic calculation of the shelf life expiration date or the shelf life expiration date check in Customizing for Batch Management . For more information, see section Set expiration date check in the Implementation Guide (IMG).

Features

  • Automatic calculation and check of the SLED of a batch

If the total shelf life is specified in the material master record, the system calculates the SLED as follows: SLED = total shelf life + production date from GR document.

If a total shelf life is not specified, you must manually enter the SLED in the goods receipt document.

  • Rounding off the SLED that has been calculated automatically

You use the rounding indicator in the material master record to specify whether and how the system rounds off the SLED that has been calculated automatically. You can decide:

  • not to round off the SLED

  • to round off to the first day of the time period specified

  • to round off to the last day of the time period specified

SLEDs that are specified manually are not rounded off.

  • Checking the remaining shelf life, for batches that were processed externally, for example

If the minimum remaining shelf life is specified in the material master record, the system calculates the remaining shelf life from the day of goods receipt to the SLED. The remaining shelf life must be greater than the minimum remaining shelf life for the batch to be accepted.

If the calculated remaining shelf life is less than the minimum remaining shelf life, a warning or error message is issued depending on the system settings.