Show TOC

Process documentationQuality Inspections with the QIE

 

The Quality Inspection Engine (QIE) is called by a consumer system, for example, the Extended Warehouse Management System (EWM), and carries out the inspection process that was triggered in this consumer system, for example, an inspection for a goods receipt for a delivery. The consumer system system uses the QIE services. This process describes an example inspection process. For more information about the inspection process, see the documentation of the consumer system.

Process

The following is an example of an inspection process for a goods receipt for a delivery. You may not have to perform all of these steps in your company, for example, if you do not use samples.

  1. You define the required inspection object types in the consumer system and assign properties to these. These properties characterize the inspection object type. Examples of properties are plant, material, and vendor.

    In some cases, you can restrict the properties of an inspection object type to specific properties within the QIE. Whether you can do this or not depends on how an inspection object type was defined in the consumer system. For more information about defining inspection object types, see the documentation for the consumer system.

  2. You define inspection rules for the different property values of the inspection object type. For example, you define inspection rules for a specific plant, or for a combination of a plant and a material. For every inspection rule, you specify arguments, that is, parameters for the inspections that are to be executed:

    • By assigning an inspection procedure, you define whether or not an inspection is to be executed, and if so, whether this is to be a 100% inspection or a sampling inspection.

    • Depending on the inspection procedure used, you may also have to enter, for example, a sampling procedure and a dynamic modification rule.

    • If necessary, you assign documents.

      The assigned documents are passed on to the inspection document when the system creates an inspection document based on the inspection rule (see step 3).

    • You specify a code group for the valuation of inspection documents. If you want to be in a position to individually valuate samples and items in the inspection documents, you must also specify code groups for samples and items.

    • To print the documents for the inspection document and the sample-drawing instruction, you must specify an action profile of the Post Processing Framework.

    • If you want the system to automatically create samples for an inspection document when the inspection document is created, you must specify a sample type, sample-drawing procedure, and sample-drawing unit. You must only enter the sample-drawing unit for sample-drawing procedures of the type time or quantity. For the type container, the system dynamically determines the unit when you create or simulate an inspection.

      The system then uses the data of the sample type, the sample-drawing procedure, and the sample-drawing unit to create the samples.

    • If you want to transfer the quality inspection data to an external system at some point during the inspection, you must specify the external system. In the external system, you can use additional functions for inspection planning and execution, for example, planning characteristics and recording results for them.

    • If you want to record defects and deviations, you must specify a finding type and a catalog filter for findings.

  3. The QIE creates an inspection document. This is triggered by a process in the consumer system. If the consumer system has a suitable interface, you can also manually create an inspection document. Do do this, proceed as follows:

    1. Select an inspection object type.

    2. Enter values for the properties of the inspection object type.

    3. You enter the lot size and the number of containers.

    4. From the data you have specified, the system determines additional data, for example:

      • The sample size

      • The inspection setup

      • The documents from the inspection rule

      The system determines the inspection setup and documents based on the inspection rules that you have defined for the property values. If you have specified values for more than one property, the system can use more than one inspection rule. If, for example, you have specified a plant and a material, the system first uses an inspection rule that contains both the plant and the material. If the system cannot determine all of the required arguments in this way, it can also use inspection rules that only contain the plant or only contain the material. In this process, property hierarchies determine the sequence in which the the system searches for inspection rules. See Inheritance of Inspection Specifications.

      For examples about the determination of the sample size, see Determination of Sample Size.

    5. If the corresponding specifications are present in the inspection rule, the system creates samples based on the data in the sample-drawing procedure.

      Caution Caution

      The system always creates only one sample record based on the sample-drawing instruction and the sample-drawing unit. If the sample-drawing unit requires that several sample records be created, for example, if five samples are to be taken every two hours, the consumer system must create the additional sample records, for example, by copying the first set.

      End of the caution.

    6. The system copies the documents from the inspection rule. If necessary, you can assign additional documents to the inspection document.

    7. You save the inspection document.

    8. If you have defined the action profiles in the Customizing of the QIE, the system automatically prints the documents, for example:

      • Documents and sample-drawing instructions for the inspection document

      • Documents and labels for samples

    9. You release the inspection document.

      Note Note

      Once you have released an object in the QIE, it is no longer possible to delete this object. You can only cancel or archive it.

      End of the note.

    10. If, in the inspection rule, you defined that data should be transferred to an external system, the system delegates the inspection to the external system and sends the data required from the inspection document.

  4. You execute the inspection. In doing so, you can use the printed documents, sample-drawing instruction, and labels.

  5. You record the results of the inspection as follows in the data record of the sample:

    1. You record deviations and defects as findings.

    2. If necessary, you specify documents.

    3. You make the inspection decision for the sample, that is, you specify a decision code and the status decided.

  6. You record the data for the inspection document in the same way as those for the sample. In doing so, you can refer to the data that you recorded for the samples.

    Note Note

    If you have transferred an inspection document to an external system, such as mySAP Enterprise Resource Planning (mySAP ERP), you can use the more comprehensive functions for results recording that are available in this system. For more information, see the documentation of the external system.

    End of the note.

Result

You have carried out a quality inspection using the QIE. If you executed the inspection with a sampling scheme and if you made the corresponding settings in the dynamic modification rule, the inspection decision that has been made will be saved in the quality level. In this way, the inspection decision influences the specifications for the next inspection. For more information, see Dynamic Modification.

The selected decision code determines whether or not a follow-up action must be executed in the consumer system. In Customizing for the QIE, you define the key of the follow-up action for the decision code under Define Decision Codes. The QIE transfers this key to the consumer system. The consumer system interprets the key and executes the follow-up action.

More Information

For detailed information and examples of how the consumer system interacts with the QIE, see Interaction Between the Systems.