SAP QM function

from https://www.tutorialspoint.com/sap_qm/sap_qm_lot_inspection.htm

As SAP Quality Management is an integral part of SAP R/3 system, it performs the following key functions in manufacturing of goods −

·        Quality Planning − Quality planning allows to plan the inspection of goods from the vendor, raw material, work-in-process, and final product.

·        Quality Notifications − Quality notification includes the defect identification and steps to be taken by quality department.

·        Quality Inspection − Here, quality results are captured and decision is taken as to whether an inspection lot is to be accepted or rejected.

In the following diagram, you can see the key components that are involved in SAP Quality Management process.

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Quality Planning

Quality planning includes data for quality planning and how the quality process has to be performed?

You perform Quality inspection plan. It is used to define the way you can inspect an item and the steps involved to perform an inspection. It also determines the characteristics of an item to be inspected and what equipment are required to perform an inspection.

Inspection plan definition is an important part of the QM planning process. The inspection plan contains the number of characteristics of the item to be inspected and the list of tests to be performed for performing the inspection.

Inspection planning can be done for raw material, work in progress and finished products.

Quality Assurance

Under Quality assurance, it includes the quality inspection.

A Quality inspection involves someone from the quality department inspecting an item as per the defined points in inspection plan. You perform the inspection based on one or more inspection lots, where a lot is a request to inspect a specific item.

In SAP system, you can create Inspection lot either manually by a user or automatically in the system.

Quality Control

Under Quality Control, you have quality notifications, standard reports, and Quality notification system. Quality control determine what actions need to be taken as after defects are detected.

The quality notification process includes recording problem that is either identified by a customer for a product manufactured in an organization, or in a company against the product of a supplier/vendor.

Quality notification can be raised internally to raise an issue that have arisen on the production line. A quality notification can be assigned to an existing order or you can also create a new order as per the quality notification.

Standard Reports

You can create reports in QM system to check how many times a product has been identified with a defect and improvement areas that your company has to implement. There are number of reports that can be generated in QM −

Material Defects Report

It can be used to check the number of times an item has been identified with a defect status.

Vendor Defect Report

This report is used to show the number of defected material supplied by a vendor. This can be checked by examining the inspection lots of the goods received. A quality department can highlight vendors who have supplied material which are failing in inspection.

Customer Defect Report

This report is used to show the defects that were found on inspections for outbound deliveries. This helps the organization to improve the quality of goods delivered and hence raise the customer satisfaction.

SAP QM – Functions

These functions comprise to form Quality Management process. In SAP QM system, you can perform the following functions −

• Quality Planning
• Quality Inspection
• Quality Control
• Quality Certificates
• Quality Notifications
• Test Equipment Management

SAP QM is integrated with other SAP modules to perform the quality planning, inspection and control process. You can integrate this with the following modules −

• SAP Material Management
• SAP Production Planning
• SAP Sales and Distribution
• SAP Controlling

Master Inspection Characteristics (MIC)

You can define inspection specifications for the materials.

function

Creating a Master Inspection Characteristic

You can use the inspection method to perform the inspection. An inspection method can be assigned to master inspection characteristics or directly to an inspection characteristics in an inspection plan.

An Inspection method can be created in one plant and the same method can be used in other plants.

Creating an Inspection Method

Sampling procedure in QM is used to determine the size of the inspection lot to be used in inspection plan under Quality planning. You can define a sampling procedure as fixed sample, percentage or other sample. A sampling scheme contains collection of sampling plans.

In sampling plan, you define the sample size specification for the inspection lot, to determine if a sample is accepted or not accepted.

Creating a Sampling Procedure

You need an inspection plan to capture the results of quality records.

To define inspection methodology, you have to enter the following details −

• Materials to be inspected.
• How the inspection of materials need to take place.
• What characteristics to be inspected, work center and inspection specifications.

In the inspection plan, you have to define the sequence of inspection steps to be performed and the range of specifications as per the Master Inspection Characteristics, sampling procedure to calculate the sample size for inspection, inspection method, etc.

You can define the status of Inspection plan as Active/ Inactive and usage of the plan.

Step 1 − To create Inspection plan, use T-Code: QP01.

Quality info records are used to manage the supplier relation in an organization. When there is continuous defect in the material supplied by a vendor, you can use Quality Info Records to block a vendor.

Creating a Quality Info Record

 

 

 

In SAP system, you can perform the incoming inspection for different material like raw material inspection, in progress material inspection or final goods inspection. Goods receipt is generated as a part of purchasing or against a scheduling agreement.

For each good receipt, SAP system creates a one-inspection lot, which contains details such as vendor, date or purchase, etc.

You can record the result for the inspection lot created at the time of Goods Receipt.

Usage decision is used to decide whether you want to accept or reject the goods in the inspection lot based on the results of the inspection. As per inspection results the process is marked as completed.

To create a usage decision against inspection lot −

In SAP QM, we can see the list of an existing lot.

To see the listing of existing lot in SAP system, follow the steps given below −

You can run the quality process for intermediate or finished product during the production process in SAP system, for example, Inspection in each shift, etc.

The in-process inspection has a reference to a production order in SAP system. You generate an Inspection lot at the time of production order release and inspection type for in-process inspection is 03 in the system. When there is a production order release, inspection lot will be automatically created in the system.

Creating and Confirming Production Order

In SAP QM, you can capture different types of record, which are identified at the time of inspection. SAP Quality notification can be used to analyze the defects identified and perform root cause analysis.

You can process defects related to −

Complaints filed by customers − This includes the defects identified in goods that are delivered to customers. You can use standard SAP Quality notification Q1 to record customer complaint and take action against problem reported by customer.

Complaints identified in vendor delivered goods − This includes the defect identified with quality of goods delivered from supplier/vendor. You use standard SAP QM notification type Q2 to record a complaint against vendor and take action for the incoming material.

Internal Defects − This includes recording internal problems which are identified at the time of in process quality inspection. You use standard SAP QM notification type Q3 to deal with problems identified in goods manufactured in a company.

Defect Recording

To do defect recording in SAP QM, follow the steps −

As mentioned in the previous topic, using Quality notification you can record different type of problems occurred due to poor quality of goods.

Quality notifications can be created for the following internal and external problems −

• Defect Analysis
• Customer Complaint
• Complaint against vendor

You can use SAP quality notification process to raise the following documentation −

·        To record the names of all individuals/ partners who are directly associated with the defect identified in goods delivery, production.

·        To record the individual defect items and analyze the root cause of the defected items.

·        To mention the corrective actions to be taken that are identified after doing the analysis of problem in detail.

·        To track corrective actions to be implemented using status management features of notification.

·        In quality notification, you capture all the activities and tasks that are performed as part of problem identification and to fix the issue.

·        You can generate various standard reports related to defects and quality notification in SAP system.