SAP HANA Quality Management (QM) overview

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 SAP QM - Overview
AP QM (Quality Management) is an integral part of several key
business processes of SAP like production, sales, procurement,
material management, etc. This training module will explain you
various QM inspection stages step-by-step and how to invoke this
process automatically.

 Introduction to SAP QM
SAP is an enterprise-wide Business Software Package designed to
integrate each area of a business.

Through SAP, all business processes can be fully integrated with

each other. This means that all the businesses processes in the
company are "inter-connected" in the SAP system, and changes in
one department or process would have an impact on other
departments.

 SAP is as an on-line, Real Time system. Thus, information

pertaining to the business is up-to-date and available for
others to use immediately and take action when required.

 SAP act as a single source and set of information.

 SAP is a leading enterprise package software in the market

 There are many modules in SAP like SAP SD, MM, PP, QM,
FICO, PM, WM and HR, etc. which are interconnected with
each other.

What is SAP QM or Quality Management?

SAP QM is a key module of SAP ERP and can be used for following

Quality planning

 Basic master data for Quality Management

 Inspection planning using inspection plans of materials,

which brings standardization of quality planning.

Quality assurance

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 SAP Quality inspection is performed through inspection lot
processing. During this process quality results are captured,
and usage decision is taken to accept or reject the
inspection lot.

 Quality certificates of analysis

Quality control

 In SAP QM Quality notifications the root cause analysis is

done for the identified defect.

 SAP QM information system is where you can analyze

various reports like vendor evaluation, a list of quality
notification, quality charts, etc.

SAP QM- Business Processes

1. Quality Management in Procurement

SAP Quality Management is fully integrated with the purchasing

and Inventory Management process.

It consists of receiving inspection wherein material is received

against the purchase order. Inspection lot is triggered if the
material is flagged for quality check.

Quality results are entered against master inspection

characteristics. Whether the results are within/out of tolerance
limits, based on that usage decision (accept/reject inspection lot)
is taken.

Stock posting from quality to other stock categories needs to be

done subsequently in SAP system.

2. Quality Management in Production

SAP Quality Management is used to connect with the production

and Inventory Management process.

It describes "In process inspections" where inspection lot is

triggered on production order release.

In "inspection after production", inspection lot is triggered after

goods receipt is posted from production order.

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"In process inspections" are not relevant to inventory whereas
inspection after production involves stock posting from quality to
other stock categories.

This process describes inspection lot processing wherein quality

results are entered against master inspection characteristics.
Usage decision ( accept/reject) is taken depending on the quality
results.

3. Quality Notifications

In this process, you can see how defects found during a quality
inspection are analysed and captured in a SAP quality notification.

Here, we do record the root cause analysis of the problems found

during inspection to avoid its re-occurrence.

For SAP QM inprocess inspections also, we can raise internal

quality notification and record our problem analysis.

Benefits of SAP QM
SAP QM provides lot of benefits for any company at various levels,
for example through:

 Quality integration with procurement and production and

hence more control over the process.

 Planning support ( usage of inspection plans )

 Monitoring of vendor and customer complaints by

implementing corrective tasks in SAP QM quality
notifications.

 Automation of quality certificates which are printed during

sales delivery to customers.

Next, we will look into each phase of SAP QM and learn how to
operate SAP QM module.

Master Data in QM
Within the SAP Quality Management module and for other SAP
applications we need to maintain the data pertaining to inspection
planning and inspection lot processing.
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Before you create an inspection lot and record inspection results,
basic SAP master data for inspection planning should be
maintained.

Following SAP QM master data should be set up before inspection

of any material.

Master Inspection Characteristics ( MIC )

Master Inspection characteristics are required to describe the

inspection specifications for materials like length, width, viscosity,
etc.

We create master inspection characteristics at the plant level to

simplify and standardize the inspection planning activities.

It also helps to organize the master inspection characteristics in

order to avoid duplicate creation of MIC.

These characteristics can be used in Routings, Master Recipe,

Inspection Plan and maintenance task list. We can also create the
different versions for the single MIC.

Inspection method and catalog could be attached to inspection

characteristics.

The below are the types of Master Inspection characteristics

available in SAP.

a) Quantitative

Quantitative characteristics are used to record the results of the

Quantitative inspection.

Values of inspection can be directly feed to these type of

characteristics while performing results recording. Characteristics
specification limits like Upper Limit, Lower Limit, and central limits
can be defined for each inspection characteristics at master level
or while creating an inspection plan.

Inspection Method can also be attached to inspection

characteristics level.

b) Qualitative

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Qualitative characteristics are used to record the results of
Attribute inspection like "Ok" or "Not ok".

Code groups / Selected sets of Catalog type 1 can be used for

recording result against Qualitative inspection characteristics.
Appropriate inspection method can be attached to inspection
characteristics.

Inspection Methods

The inspection methods describe the procedures for carrying out

inspections.

You can assign an "inspection method" to a master inspection

characteristic or directly to an inspection characteristic in an
inspection plan.

Inspection method can also be created in one plant, and the same
can be used in the inspection plan for another plant by using the
original plant of inspection method.

Sampling Procedure

The sampling procedure is the procedure by which the sample

size for an inspection lot is determined. It can be used in
inspection plans.

The sampling procedure can be a fixed sample, percentage

sample, 100% or using sampling scheme. Sample scheme is the
collection of sampling plans.

A sampling plan defines the sample size based on a specific

inspection lot quantity and defines the criteria for determining
whether and how a sample is accepted or rejected.

Depending on the business requirement sampling size is

determined. For example, if a batch of the drug needs to be
tested, depending on the quantity of the drug manufactured, the
sampling for inspection is planned.

Inspection Plan

Defining inspection plan is necessary if you want to capture

quality result it is used,

 To define inspection methodology, for example,

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o Materials to be inspected

o How the inspection of materials need to be taken place

o What characteristics to be inspected, work center and

inspection specifications.

 Inspection plans define how a quality inspection of one or

multiple materials will be taken place. In the inspection plan,
we define the

sequence of inspection operations and the range of

specifications available for inspecting master inspection
characteristics, sampling procedure to calculate the sample
size for inspection, Inspection method to inspect the MIC,
etc.

 The "status" and "usage" can be maintained for the

inspection plan to check whether the plan is active or
inactive. We can identify the inspection plan by using group
number (client level) and group counter (plant level)
generated by the SAP system. Multiple materials can be
attached to one plan provided the parameters to be
inspected are same.

Quality Info record

Quality Info record is maintained for a "material –vendor

relationship." It is used to block the material from procurement
through a certain vendor when the quality of the product is
compromised supplied by the particular vendor.

In this SAP master, we will maintain the quality system for the
combination of vendor and material.

This SAP master will become mandatory only if the QM

Procurement key is active in the material master.

When a quotation or purchase order is created, the SAP system

checks whether a Q-info record is required and available for the
combination of material and vendor.

A check is made to determine whether the purchase order can be

released based on the Q-info record.

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Quality information record need to be maintained if we would like
to use the source inspection functionality which means, materials
will undergo an inspection prior to the material reaches the plant
for Goods Receipt (GR).

This inspection will be purely based on the purchase order created

in the SAP system against a material – vendor – plant
combination. There will not be any GR (Goods Receipt) inspection
if the material is already cleared through the source inspection.

Q info record is also useful in scenarios where inspection is

restricted. Which means that the inspection should be continued if
it is procured from "xyz" vendor but not in the case when it is
procured by some "abc" vendor.

Incoming/Raw Material Inspection

Procedure
Incoming inspection is generally called as Raw Material
Inspection received against purchase order in SAP. This
inspection will be activated in the raw material by maintaining
SAP QM data in Material Master.

To identify the triggering of inspection based on the business

process, inspection types are maintained in SAP.

Incoming inspection has following steps to follow in SAP system,

like

 Creation of inspection lot at goods receipts against

purchase order

A good receipt will happen in the procurement process as a part

of purchasing. Good receipt generally occurs against a purchase
order or schedule agreement.

Against each GR line item, the SAP system will automatically

generate one inspection lot which contains details of the purchase
like vendor, date of purchase, inspection specifications and
sampling details.

 Listing of Inspection lot

To list Inspection lots, you may use the transaction code QA33.
The search criteria can be
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1. Material (s)

2. Inspection lot creation date

3. Inspection dates

4. Plant

5. Inspection type

6. Batch

7. Vendor

 Attaching inspection plan and release the inspection

lot

If only one inspection plan with task list type '05' (Goods
receipt inspection) is available for the material in released
status, the SAP system automatically assigns the plan to the
material. If more than one inspection plan exists for the
material, we have to,

1. Assign the proper inspection plan to the material

2. Calculate the sample

3. Release the lot for inspection processing.

 Sample calculation

If sampling procedure is attached with the inspection plan /

material / characteristics, the SAP system will automatically
calculate the sample otherwise manually go to the lot and
calculate the sample.

 Result recording

Result recording will be done against the inspection lot

created at the time of Goods Receipt.

All the characteristics will be shown in the SAP recording

screen for input. The SAP system will give an f4 search for
getting code values for attribute inspection.

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For quantitative data, based on tolerance limit (upper and
lower), the SAP system will propose the valuation. In both
cases, the inspector can accept or reject the proposal
(Manually).

 Usage Decision

When we make the usage decision, you decide whether to

accept or reject the goods in the inspection lot based on the
results of the inspection.Once you have made the usage
decision, the inspection is completed.

 Stock posting

If inventory management is in place at the time of usage

decision, we can transfer the Quality stock into relevant
stock categories like,

1. Unrestricted usage

2. Blocked

3. Scrap

4. Different material

5. Sample

6. Return to vendor

In-Process Inspection
In-process inspection (time-based) is used for recording the result
for an in-process quality check for the intermediate and finished
product during the production process.

For example, inspection in every two hours, inspection per shift,

etc. We will be discussing this moving forward.

The "Inprocess inspection" lot will have a reference/ link to a

production order in SAP system.

The routing operation will contain the inspection characteristics

which are needed to be inspected during the in-process checks.

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Inspection lot will be generated at the time of production order
release. The inspection type for in-process inspection is '03'.

NOTE: This type of inspection will not control the inventory, but
control the production process.

In-process inspection has following process steps, like

 Creation of inspection lots at process Order release

Inspection lot creation in SAP system will be generated

automatically at the time of production order release.

 Listing of Inspection lot

To list Inspection lots, you may use the transaction code QA33.
The search criteria can be,

1. Material (s)

2. Inspection lot creation date

3. Inspection dates

4. Plant

5. Inspection type 03

 Assign Task list to inspection lot

Task list will be automatically assigned from the routing of

material.

 Sample calculation

If sampling procedure is attached with the characteristics in the

quality operation of the master recipe, the SAP system will
automatically calculate the sample during the time of lot
creation / plant assignment in case of multiple plans available for
a material.

 Result recording

Result recording will be done against the inspection lot created

against the production order.

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All the characteristics will be shown in the SAP recording screen
for input. The SAP system will give an f4 search for getting code
values for attribute inspection.

For quantitative data, based on tolerance limit (upper and lower),

the SAP system will propose the valuation. In both cases, the
inspector can accept or reject the proposal (Manually).

 Usage Decision

When we make the usage decision, you decide whether to accept

or reject the goods in the inspection lot based on the results of
the inspection. Once you have made the usage decision, the
inspection is completed. Stock posting is restricted to the in-
process inspection.

Final Inspection
Inspection against Production GR- this inspection will be based on
production confirmation against a production order.

The inspection lot (with inspection type 04) will be created at the
time of Good receipt against production order.

The SAP system will generate a unique inspection lot which will
have the information of production order, Inspection specification
and sampling.

A separate lot will be generated for each GR line items (batch) in

the confirmation.

The stock will remain in Quality inspection stock until the

inspection is completed (Usage decision is made).

Final inspection after production has following process steps in

SAP system, like

 Creation and Confirmation of Production Order

A good receipt will happen in the procurement process as a part

of purchasing. Good receipt generally occurs against a purchase
order or schedule agreement.

Against each GR line item, the SAP system will automatically

generate one inspection lot which contains details of the purchase

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like vendor, date of purchase, inspection specifications and
sampling details.

 Listing of Inspection lot

To list Inspection lots, you may use the transaction code QA33.
The search criteria can be,

1. Material (s)

2. Inspection lot creation date

3. Inspection dates

4. Plant

5. Inspection type "04"

6. Batch

 Attaching inspection plan and release the inspection

lot

The SAP system automatically assigns the inspection plan to the

material with task list type '05' (Goods receipt inspection). If more
than one inspection plan exists for the material, we have to

1. Assign the proper inspection plan to the material

2. Calculate the sample

3. Release the lot for inspection processing.

 Sample calculation

If sampling procedure is attached with the inspection plan /

material / characteristics, the SAP system will automatically
calculate the sample otherwise manually go to the lot and
calculate the sample.

 Result recording

Result recording will be done against the inspection lot created at

the time of Goods Receipt.

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All the characteristics will be shown in the SAP recording screen
for input. The SAP system will give an f4 search for getting code
values for attribute inspection.

For quantitative data, based on tolerance limit (upper and lower),

the SAP system will propose the valuation. In both cases, the
inspector can accept or reject the proposal (Manually).

 Usage Decision

When we make the usage decision, you decide whether to accept

or reject the goods in the inspection lot based on the results of
the inspection. Once you have made the usage decision, the
inspection is completed.

 Stock posting

In Final inspection after production, inventory management is in

place at the time of usage decision, and we can transfer the
Quality stock into relevant stock categories like,

1. Unrestricted usage

2. Blocked

3. Scrap

4. Different material

5. Sample

6. Return to vendor

Quality Notification
SAP QM Quality Notification contains functions for capturing and
processing different types of problems or defects which are
identified during inspection (for example, defects resulting from
poor-quality goods).

 SAP QM Quality notifications are utilized to analyze

the recorded defects and perform root cause analysis
of these problems.

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In particular, the SAP QM notifications can help you to process
internal and external problems such as:

 External Complaints filed by customers

This is standard SAP quality notification type Q1 that deals with

the problem associated with quality of goods delivered to the
customer. This is used to record customer complaint and take
action against the problem reported by the customer.

 External Complaints against vendors

This is standard SAP QM quality notification type Q2 that deals

with the problem associated with quality of goods delivered by
the vendor. This is used to record a complaint against vendor and
take action against the problem identified during an incoming
quality inspection of materials.

 Company-internal problems

This is standard SAP QM quality notification type Q3 that deals

with the problem associated with quality of goods which is
originated inside the company. This is used to record internal
problems, which are identified during in-process quality
inspections in the shop floor.

The SAP QM quality notifications contain various features and

functions.

In general, SAP quality notification can be used to:

 Elaborate a problem and identify the affected reference

objects (for example, material, vendor, manufacturer, and
customer)

 Record and store the names of all personnel (partners) who

are directly associated with the defect.

 Define processing specifications for the SAP QM quality

notification (for example, mentioning a time range within
which the defect should be fixed and allocating a priority to
the notification)

 Capture individual Defect items pertaining to the problem

and analyze the root causes of the defect.
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 Mention the corrective actions to be taken (for example,
tasks that are executed immediately or corrective activities
that are executed after a deep analysis of the defects)

 Track the implementation of corrective actions through

status management features of notification. It has a various
status such as release, put in process and completed.

 Capture all activities and tasks that have been carried out
for the problem rectification.

 Document the nonconformity costs incurred during analysis

and resolving a problem.

 Various types of reports pertaining to the problem can be

printed, faxed and exported.

-: The End :-

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