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A part’s tracking type (serial, lot, or untracked) is set through the Tracking field on the part. For what each type means and how to choose, see Parts.

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What each tracking type changes downstream

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Serial number generation

When a part is serial-tracked, ION generates serial numbers in one of two ways:
  • Automatically from the part’s revision scheme, recommended for in-house manufactured parts.
  • From the supplier at receive time, for purchased serialized components. Scan or enter the vendor’s serial.

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Serial number uniqueness

ION rejects a duplicate serial during install or receive. How wide “duplicate” reaches depends on the part and your settings:
  • The same revision never takes the same serial twice. This applies to every org, and the comparison ignores case.
  • A different revision of the same part number can reuse a serial, so a unit that moves from Rev A to Rev B keeps its serial and you can still build and service both revisions. Turning on part interchangeability blocks this, because interchangeability treats every revision of a part number as the same part. For more information, see Enable part interchangeability.
  • A different part number can’t reuse a serial when your org uses global unique serial numbers.

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Lot number generation

Lot numbers come from one of three sources:
  • Generated by ION at receive time using a configured pattern.
  • Entered from the supplier’s lot label.
  • Captured from your manufacturing batch identifier when you produce a lot internally.
Lots are scoped to the part. LOT-2026-0123 on part A is different from LOT-2026-0123 on part B.

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Switch tracking type

You can change a part’s Tracking field at any time, even after inventory exists. The one exception is a tool, which must stay serial tracked along with all of its inventory. Changing the tracking type doesn’t change existing inventory. Each record keeps the serial or lot number it already has, so switching a part to untracked leaves its serialized records serialized.

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Made on Assembly and tracking

When a serialized sub-assembly is installed onto a parent assembly through Made on Assembly (see Editing build requirements), ION still tracks the sub-assembly’s serial. The Made on Assembly flag changes the workflow, so the sub-assembly is built into the parent rather than as a separate run, but it doesn’t change the identity.