Date Code

This article covers meaning & overview of Date Code from operations perspective.

Published by MBA Skool Team in Operations and Supply Chain Terms Last Updated: May 12, 2023Read time:

What is Date Code?

A date code is a piece of info which gives information to manufacturing plan so that they can track the date info from the code. A date code, as the name suggests, has the date encoded in a certain format, known to the manufacturing and packaging plants which would tell the date of production or packaging as the case maybe.

For example:

Date codes can be of different types, some of them are:

1)      Three digit code: The first digit represents the year and the remaining two digits represent the week number in a calendar year. E.g. 451 means week 51 of year 2004

2)      Four digit code: The first two digits represent the year and the remaining two digits represent the week number in a calendar year. E.g. 0451 means week 51 of year 2004

3)      Five digit code: The first digit represents the year. The second two digits represent the month and the remaining two digits represent the day. E.g. 41201 means December 1, 2004

These date codes help in quality control purposes too. Generally there is a letter of the alphabet adjacent to it which helps in identifying the factory location. Such date codes and various other formats are used extensively across industries at the time of manufacturing and packaging different products.


Hence, this concludes the definition of Date Code along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team which comprises of MBA students, management professionals, and industry experts. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

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