This scenario describes the quality inspections that take place during and after the manufacturing operation. These inspections can play an important part in different industry sectors and production types. They can be integrated, for example, in lot-based machine assembly, mass production of machine parts or batch-based foodstuff production.

The manufacture of products using batches or recipes in certain branches of the process industry is subject to stringent requirements regarding product quality and manufacturing procedures, which are laid down by regulatory bodies (such as the FDA and GMP). These requirements apply primarily to the pharmaceutical industry, but also to certain sectors in the foodstuff and cosmetic industries.

In the scenario QM in Production, you use the integrated business functions of the following R/3 components:

• In a quality inspection during production, you can plan numerous inspections for an operation by using inspection points. This allows you to constantly monitor the production operation and to assign the partial quantities (subsets) that have been produced to the inspection points.

• You then record characteristic results. If there are partial quantities with varying characteristics, you can divide the total quantity for the production order into partial lots, based on the inspection points.
  You can record inspection activities and results when you confirm operations in the manufacturing order.

• You can document any defects that are found using defect data. To manage a defect, together with its corrective action in the SAP System, you activate and process a quality notification.

• You make a usage decision for the total quantity of the inspection lot at inspection lot completion. You can also make a usage decision for each partial quantity (partial lot) of the inspection lot. The usage decision for the entire lot documents the completion of all inspections, or the completion of the manufacturing order from a QM standpoint.

• If no defects were found in the quality inspection, you post a goods receipt. This posting updates the stock quantities and the stock value of the goods produced.

The SAP System can create a new inspection lot at goods receipt, and if required, can post the material to inspection stock.

A quality inspection for a goods receipt from production is similar to the inspection during production. It does not however use inspection points and partial lots. Alternatively, an "early" inspection lot can be created for the goods receipt posting from production when the order is released. Partial quantities can then be posted continually to this lot, each time goods are received from production.

You record the costs of the inspection in a QM order.

To complete the inspection, you make a usage decision for the goods receipt quantity. The inspection lot quantity that has been accepted is posted to unrestricted-use stock. You can make special postings for quantities that have not been accepted.

You can use internal quality notifications during production to process and document defects in quality that have been identified.
For example, if an employee identifies serious defects in semi-finished products or machines, you can create a quality notification in which you can enter the objects concerned, the departments responsible for the notification in your company, as well as the corrective tasks and activities to be performed.

If the substandard product in the problem is a material or product handled in batches, you can call up a batch where-used list to identify, for example, the batches of raw material or semi-finished products that make up the affected batch, or the batches of semi-finished or finished products that contain the affected batch.

Once you have confirmed all the required tasks that have been performed, you complete the quality notification.

Often, you only ascertain whether a task was successful after the quality notification has been completed. In such cases, you can document the success of a task retrospectively in the quality notification.

It is advisable to use quality notifications in production if:

• Several people are required to process a problem
• You want to improve your products and processes on an ongoing basis, by systematically analyzing problems

The batch and recipe-oriented manufacture of products in the process industry also requires a special approval procedure, when the individual process orders are released This procedure plays an integral role in safeguarding specific quality requirements in the relevant industry sectors.

Once you have processed the quality notification, you have rectified the problem that occurred and removed the cause of the problem.

In a quality inspection, you can give attributes to the batches produced with the help of the inspection results. You can then use these attributes in Sales to select specific batches at a goods issue posting.

Once the production operation has been completed, you have goods of an acceptable quality in your warehouse, provided that no defects were found at the quality inspection. These goods are available for use as required.