Decommission: Understanding the Exit of Products from the Supply Chain

A Decommission event represents a pivotal moment when a product exits the tracked supply chain. This event is significant not only for inventory management but also for maintaining the integrity of the supply chain system. Decommissioning ensures that all products' lifecycle stages are documented accurately, contributing to your overall understanding of product provenance and flow.

The decommissioning process serves multiple purposes:

1. Clear Documentation of Product Exit: Each product that decommissions is officially recorded on the blockchain, ensuring a secure and immutable record of its exit from the supply chain. This level of transparency is essential for both businesses and consumers who seek assurance in product quality and traceability.
2. Inventory Integrity: By decommissioning products that are sold or damaged, businesses can maintain accurate inventory counts. This helps prevent overstocking and ensures that consumers, like you, only have access to the best and most reliable products available.
3. Reason for Removal: During the decommissioning process, Wholechain users provide specific reasons for each decommission event. Whether a product has been purchased, deemed unfit for sale, or removed for other reasons, this context is critical for understanding supply chain dynamics and trends.

Examples in Practice:

• Product Consumption: For instance, when you purchase a bottle of juice at a grocery store, this transaction triggers a decommission event. The product is marked as exited from the supply chain, closing the loop on its traceable journey.
• Addressing Product Quality: Consider a situation where a shipment of canned goods is found to be damaged during transit. These items would be decommissioned to prevent them from reaching the market. This process not only protects consumers but also preserves the reputation of suppliers.

The decommissioning process is vital to the strength and transparency of the supply chain. By ensuring that every exit is accurately recorded and communicated, Wholechain helps maintain high standards of inventory management and product integrity. Understanding decommissioning empowers you as a consumer to make informed choices, knowing that the products you purchase are tracked throughout their journey.

Navigating Decommission in Wholechain

1

Navigate to the Products page from Wholechain's left-side menu. 

2

Click on the product that has an item that you need to decommission. 

3

In the Current Inventory tab, select the item(s) you want to decommission and click Actions > Decommission

4

If you selected multiple items to decommission and some items were decommissioned on different dates, select the "Multiple Dates" check box to include decommission dates by item. 

5

You'll be prompted to select a reason, as well as provide a description to further clarify the Decommission event, and select the date of decommissioning. Note that you can decommission part of an item's available quantity or the entire quantity by changing the quantity field.

6

You'll have the option to select a Custom Data Template, either that you've created previously or received from a Network Partner. If you do not wish to include any custom data, simply select "None."

7

Click Log Event, and the item will automatically relocate to the product page's Decommission / Archive tab, where you'll notice that while the item and its journey are still visible by clicking on it, it can no longer be used to log events.