Describe quality management capabilities
Quality management in Supply Chain Management is used to help improve product quality within your supply chain. Quality assurance involves product testing and management of nonconforming material.
Nonconforming material describes an item or items that have a quality problem. The nonconformance process lets you create a nonconformance order that describes a quantity of nonconforming material, the problem source, the problem type, and explanatory notes.
The six default nonconformance types and the information that must be recorded for each type are detailed in the following table.
| Nonconformance type | Source information |
|---|---|
| Customer | The customer account number, the sales order number, or a lot number of a sales order transaction. For example, the nonconformance might be related to a specific sales order shipment or to customer feedback about product quality. |
| Service request | Quality specifications weren't met, a customer filed a complaint, or machine maintenance is required. |
| Vendor | The vendor account number, the purchase order number, or a lot number of a purchase order transaction. For example, the nonconformance might be related to a purchase order receipt or to a vendor's concern about a part that it supplies. |
| Production | The production order number or a lot number of a production order transaction. For example, the nonconformance might be related to a specific batch that was produced. |
| Internal | The quality order number or a lot number of a quality order transaction. For example, the nonconformance might be related to the tests that are performed as part of a quality order or to an employee's concern about product quality. |
| Coproduct production | A coproduct production order nonconformance that is related to batch production orders. |
When you use Supply Chain Management, you can define a classification of problem types to make analysis of nonconforming material easier. You can also print a nonconformance tag and a nonconformance report to guide the disposition of nonconforming material. For example, the tag and report might indicate a condition of Unusable or Restricted usage.
Quality management can help you:
Manage turnaround times when you manage nonconforming products (regardless of their point of origin).
Schedule tasks to correct problems and prevent them from recurring.
Help guarantee a high level of product quality.
Optimize supply chain processes.
Increase customer satisfaction.
The Quality management for warehouse processes feature extends the capabilities of the basic quality management feature. It lets you integrate item sampling controls into the warehouse receiving process by using advanced warehouse management. Warehouse work can automatically move inventory to quality control based on a percentage, fixed quantity, or every nth license plate. After a quality order is completed, work can be automatically generated to move inventory to the next location in the process, depending on the quality results. Quality orders aren't always required, which provides for a lightweight quality control process that is based on warehouse work.
The Quality management for warehouse processes feature automatically generates work as part of the receiving process to move the inventory quantity that is required for quality control to a quality control location. If the received quantity exceeds the quality control requirement, the excess is moved to an inbound location as defined in the location directive. Once the quality order is validated, the quantity is automatically moved to a new inbound or return location based on the validation result and location directive. The automatic generation of work that has only the quantity that must be moved to and from quality control provides an integrated process experience.
In addition to functionality for managing nonconformance, quality management includes functionality for tracking issues by problem type (even internal problems) and for identifying solutions as short-term or long-term. Statistics about key performance indicators (KPIs) provide insight into the history of previous nonconformance issues and the solutions that were used to correct them. You can use historical data to review the effectiveness of previous quality measures and determine appropriate measures to use in the future.
When you set up a quality association, Supply Chain Management can generate quality orders for various business processes, events, and conditions. The quality association can cover a specific item, a specific group of items, or all items.
Sample quality management use cases
Quality management is flexible and can be implemented in various ways to meet the requirements of specific levels of supply chain operations. The following examples illustrate the uses of these features:
Automatically start a quality control process based on predefined criteria (upon warehouse registration of a purchase order from a specific vendor).
Block inventory during inspection to prevent nonapproved inventory from being used (full blocking of purchase order quantities).
Use item sampling as part of a quality association to define the amount of current physical inventory that must be inspected. Sampling can be based on fixed quantities, a percentage, or full license plate.
Create quality orders for partial receipts. To create a quality order based on received quantity, select the ‘Per updated quantity’ checkbox on the Item sampling form.
Create test types that include minimum, maximum, and target test values, and perform qualitative-versus-quantitative testing that has predefined validation results.
Specify an acceptable quality level (AQL) to control quality measure tolerances.
Specify the resources that an inspection operation requires, such as a test area and test instruments.
Control the quality management process
The following diagram demonstrates the quality management process.
Here are some of the ways that you can control the quality management process:
Create quality orders that are based on trigger points such as “at product receipt” for inbound operations or “at product pick-up” for outbound operations.
Document test results and determine whether the results meet the established test criteria and acceptable quality levels.
Use document management for detailed product specifications and user-specific notes as part of reporting during the inspection process.
Maintain nonconforming products and correlate these products with other nonconformance information to track down the original cause of a problem.
Document the cost of managing a nonconformance. This cost can include the items (such as spare parts), miscellaneous charges, and the timesheet hours that are required to correct the nonconformance.
Schedule error correction processes by using correction handling that is linked to quality orders.
The following video demonstrates the quality management process to be performed when a product is received as a part of the inbound process.
This process can also be performed for other inbound processes, including warehouse transfer, sales return, and finished good issue to warehouse from production floor.
Quality management configurations
You can find the quality management configurations under Inventory management > Setup > Quality control.
Test instruments
You need to define the test instruments to capture the details about the devices that are used to perform tests on quality orders. Test instruments are optional; however, they can help quality workers know which device or tool they should use to perform a specific test.
Test
You need to define the individual tests that determine whether your products meet quality specifications. You can associate the test instruments with the test. For each test, you need to define the quality test type, which has three values: Integer, Fraction, and Option.
For a quantitative test, the Type field is set to Integer or Fraction. For the qualitative test, the Type field is set to Option.
Test variable
For the qualitative tests, you must define the test variable showing the possible results. For each outcome of the test, you can assign a status of Pass or Fail, when that outcome is selected as a test result. Multiple tests can use the same test variable to record the results.
Item sampling
Item sampling is used as part of a quality association. It defines the amount of current physical inventory that must be inspected. Sampling can be based on fixed quantities, a percentage, or a full license plate.
Test group
You need to create a test group and assign one or more tests to a test group. You can assign several policies to the test group, such as a sampling plan, acceptable quality limit (AQL), and the requirement for destructive testing. For each test, you need to define the acceptance criteria. For the Integer or fraction type tests, you need to define the standard output along with the minimum and maximum acceptable value. For the Option type tests, you need to associate the test variable with the default acceptable outcome.
Item quality group
The Item quality group represents a group of items that follow the same quality process. You can create the same quality association for this group of items.
Quality association
Quality association is the master configuration of quality management that decides the rule for automatic quality order generation based on inventory transactions.
In the Reference type and Event type fields, you can define the inventory transactions that generate the quality order. The following table includes all the transactional events that can generate quality orders.
| Reference type | Event type |
|---|---|
| Production | Registration Report as finished |
| Inventory | Not applicable |
| Sales | Picking process is scheduled Packing slip |
| Purchase | Receipts list Registration Product receipt |
| Quarantine | Report as finished End |
| Route operation | Report as finished |
| Coproduct production | Registration Report as finished |
You can define the rule for a group of items by selecting Group in the Item code field followed by Item quality group in the Item field. The quality association rules should be defined for a site. You can create rules specific for vendors, customer, resources, and operations based on the Reference type selected.
On the Specification FastTab, you can define the test group applicable for a specific quality association. You can also define the item sampling here along with the acceptable quality limit (AQL).
The Event blocking field helps you define the transactions to be blocked for the execution of the quality process.
Quality control scenario
Based on the quality association rules, quality orders are automatically created for the specific items at the occurrence of the defined transaction. The inventory is blocked for picking based on your configuration while quality processes are in place. If the quality process fails, you can generate a quarantine order. Quarantined inventory is transferred to a quarantine warehouse.
As a quality manager, you want to start a process to inspect inventory when picking a specific product.
This process might be required to quarantine items for quality control reasons. When the items are quarantined, you can either create the quarantine orders manually or set up the system to create the quarantine orders automatically.
If the items are returned to the warehouse and in the inspection process, those items are allocated to a quarantine warehouse to avoid further issues to the production floor or warehouse transfer.