What is the product Shelf Life ?
The product Shelf Life is a time duration. It is the period of time between its production date and its expiration date.
When speaking about Shelf Life, we have to distinguish 2 expiration dates: the Current expiration date and the Requested expiration date.
The Current expiration date
it is obtained by adding the Total Shelf Life to the WO Production end date (called WO Planned Release Date):
The Requested expiration date
This one is calculated by adding the Customer-required Shelf Life to the WO Production end date (called WO Planned Release Date):
How does it look like in the planning?
In Planning application, Expiration dates are visible by activating “Expiration dates” button in "WOs" tab of the chart control ribbon:
- Yellow triangle symbolizes WO Current expiration date (Total Shelf Life).
- Orange triangle symbolizes WO Requested expiration date (Required Shelf Life).
In that example, "Plan. release date" (= WO Production End Date) is 06/10/2025 16:50
The item produced by that WO has been set with Total Shelf Life = 4 days and Customer-required Shelf Life = 2 days.
Then Current expiration date is Total Shelf Life after WO Planned Release Date, meaning 4 days after WO production end date (06/10-2025 16:50).
Therefore Current expiration date is then 10/10/2025 16:50.
Similarly, Requested expiration date is Customer-required Shelf Life (2 days) after WO Customer Due Date (= 08-10-2025 00:00).
Therefore Requested expiration date is 10/10/2025 00:00
Shelf Life Criticality indicators
It gives an indication about the level of compliance of a production to its Customer-required Shelf Life.
The “Shelf life criticality” informs about the respect of the Requested Expiration Date.
In Planning application, it is possible to display operations using a color dedicated to their WO “Shelf life criticality”. This can be selected from "Op. colors" tab of the chart control ribbon:
The Requested expiration date is complied with if the criticality is inferior to 100%. Beyond that percentage, the Customer-required Shelf Life is not complied with, as the Requested Expiration date is later than the Current Expiration date. More information about how to calculate that rate can be found in "<Ortems_installation_folder>\help\us\ps\html\role_criticality.htm".
It means, as the customer due date change, it moves the current expiration date (orange arrow) to approach the requested expiration date. In that situation, the criticality rate will rise.
In our current example we have a shelf life criticality of 74%. If now we move our customer due date from 08/10/2025 00:00 to 08/10/2025 12:00 then the requested expiration date is now 10/10/2025 12:00 and the criticality is now of 91%.
More detailed information
Ortems online help contains detailed information about this Shelf Life feature:
- about Product Shelf Life, read "<Ortems_installation_folder>\help\us\ps\html\role_shelf_life.htm"
- about Expiration Dates , read "<Ortems_installation_folder>\help\us\ps\html\role_expiration_date.htm"
- about Criticality, read "<Ortems_installation_folder>\help\us\ps\html\role_criticality.htm" and "<Ortems_installation_folder>\help\us\ps\html\indic_perf_sl_criticality.htm"
