Rod,

You called it pretty close. I work in Virology and am designing the
database to keep track of reagents to be used in diagnostic tests.

What I ended up doing and if you can check it over for any problems I may be
failing to foresee, I have 6 production tables that hold the details of each
batch of 6 different classes of reagents. They are all joined to a table
called QtyMade that holds all of the common information and, of course, how
much was made. The PK of the QtyMade table is comprised of the PKs of the
production tables and acts as the parent in a left join to the child
production tables.

I then have an Inventory table that holds temporary information like where
the reagents are stored. It also is the child in a left join to the QtyMade
table.

The QtyMade table is also a parent in a left join to the Package Details
table that keeps track of what and how may reagents were sent in a package.

Any problems with this setup?

Thanks all,
AG