Introducing QM in Production

During production, it may be necessary for you to carry out a several individual inspections at different intervals or as a result of certain events. With the component QM in Production, you can process inspections during a production operation (while manufacturing discrete parts) or a process phase (while producing process goods).

The inspection characteristics in Quality Management (QM) are integrated in the work scheduling (Material Master view) and production processing functions (routing operations) of the Production Planning (PP) component.

Inspection Points

Using inspection points for an inspection during production, you can:

• Inspect materials at regular intervals
• Time-based intervals (for example, an inspection point every hour or for each work shift)
• Quantity-based intervals (for example, an inspection point for each container)
• Freely-defined intervals (for example, an inspection point each time a tool change occurs)
• Record inspection results for each inspection point (for example, for each container or work shift) and valuate each inspection point with a "usage decision"
• Assign a produced quantity to each inspection point and allocate the inspection point quantities to partial lots

It is recommended that you allocate inspection points with the same usage decision to partial lots. This allows you to manage partial quantities that differ in quality. In this way, you can monitor the production process continuously with respect to the inspection characteristics.

Inspection lot creation

When a production order is released, the system creates an inspection lot record to manage the inspection specifications and inspection results for all operations.

Recording inspection results for an inspection point

When you record inspection results in QM, you can also confirm the operations in the PP component. This can occur automatically. You can confirm the inspection point quantities in PP in the form of a partial or final confirmation. If you want to confirm additional data in production planning (in addition to the inspection point quantities and target activities), you can call up a dialog box for a detailed confirmation. In this dialog box, you can record such information as actual times or personnel-related data. You can also record defects.

Inspection completion

When you process partial lots and confirm an inspection point, the system automatically proposes a "usage decision" for each partial lot based on the inspection point valuation. You can change the proposed code within the predefined code group.

The usage decision for the inspection lot confirms that all inspections have been completed or that the production order has been completed from a QM standpoint. To make the usage decision for the inspection lot, you can define a job that makes automatic usage decisions at predefined intervals, once the orders have been completed.

Proposed quantity for a goods receipt from production

The inspection point quantities for the last QM-relevant operation are proposed for the goods receipt posting for the order. Only the quantities confirmed to PP as a yield or rework quantities are taken into consideration.