This scenario describes how you use and integrate the Quality Management (QM) component in the sales and distribution processes of a company.

With this component, you can support your sales and shipping activities by:

• Performing quality inspections for delivery of a material or product before it leaves your premises (quality inspections for a delivery).
• Creating quality certificates for individual deliveries
• Managing customer-specific terms of delivery or inspection specifications
• Processing customer complaints for substandard or defective deliveries

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

For configurable materials, the customer can specify characteristic values for a required variant. You can define that these specifications from the variant configuration are automatically copied into production inspections and their related goods inspections.

If you manage the stock of a material in batches, the system allows you to select suitable batches using batch characteristics. You can use the characteristic values defined for batch determination as the specifications for the final inspection at the shipping stage.

If the inspection characteristics come from different sources and are not compatible, the specifications from batch determination or from the variant configuration have precedence over the specifications from the material specification or inspection plan.

When you create a delivery note for a product, the SAP System automatically opens an inspection lot and provides the necessary shop papers for a quality inspection. The inspection lot can also be created manually.

If you manage the product to be delivered in batches and one delivery item cannot be covered by a single batch, the system can divide the delivery item between several batches and create a partial lot for each batch.

If you have defined that the quality inspection can take place after the delivery, you can post the goods issue independently of the quality inspection.

You enter characteristic results for the inspection lot or partial lot.

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

If you recorded characteristic results for partial lots, you make a usage decision for the partial lot and the entire inspection lot. Otherwise, you make a usage decision for the inspection lot.

You can use a QM order to enter and settle costs for inspection activities that were incurred when results were recorded or when the usage decision was made.

If necessary, the system automatically creates a quality certificate.

If no defects were found in the quality inspection, you can post a goods issue after making the usage decision.

Some industry sectors include quality certificates with the delivery. These certificates document the material specification or the inspection results of a batch. The SAP System provides many options for certificate creation. It automatically finds the delivery certificate recipient and selects the correct form, content, and output device according to the information for the addressee and environment. It uses information from Sales and Distribution (for example, from the customer master or sales order) and if required, information from the Quality Management component (for example, from inspection specifications or inspection results), or from the Materials Management component (for example, from the batch specification, or from the specifications for batch determination). The SAP System creates the certificate at the same time as the other shipping documents and prints them using a printer or fax. The quality certificates that are produced can be stored using the SAP ArchiveLink.

Customers with the required authorization can access the certificate for a batch on the Internet.

You can use quality notifications to process and document customer complaints, that arise as a result of poor quality products.

The products have been delivered to the customer. The customer complains about the goods (without returning them) or returns them without prior notice.

If you have already created a return for sales order processing, the system automatically creates an inspection lot for the inspection that subsequently takes place.

Alternatively, the customer sends a collective shipment together with the corresponding inspection reports.

You then create a quality notification in which you can enter the object concerned, the details of the problem, 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 for customer complaints 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 data collected and documented in the quality notification is available for more detailed analysis in the QM Information System. In this way, you build a knowledge base that helps you to improve the quality of your products and processes on an ongoing basis.