Vendors that have certified QM systems in use may be able to maintain a higher product quality than those without QM systems. In Customizing for QM in Procurement, you can waive the requirement for goods receipt inspections when goods are delivered from vendors who have certified QM systems in use. If you waive the inspection requirement:

• The system does not create an inspection lot when goods are procured from these vendors.

• The goods are posted directly to unrestricted-use stock when they are received.

If you want to define a QM system and be able to control inspection skips, you must maintain various master records:

• You define the requirements for a vendor's QM system in the material master record.

• You specify the vendor's QM system (which is identified in Customizing as a certified system) in the vendor master record or the quality info record. If you enter the QM system in the vendor master record, the inspection skip applies to all of the vendor's materials. If you enter the QM system in the quality info record, the inspection skip only applies to a specific combination of material, vendor, and plant.

• In the quality info record, you can override an inspection skip that has been defined in Customizing. For example, if you want to force inspections for a certain combination of material, vendor, and plant, you can specify this in the corresponding quality info record.

If you want to override inspection skips for several materials or vendors, you can process several quality info records using the function for mass data maintenance.

• You can specify a validity period for the certification of the actual QM system in both the vendor master record and the quality info record. If you specified a validity period and a QM system in both places, the data in quality info record applies

When you maintain a quality info record, you can only enter a certification date if an actual QM system is also specified. If you leave the date field blank, the QM system is valid for an unlimited period of time.

The system checks whether the QM system is still valid and it issues an error or warning message as follows:

If a QM system is specified in both the vendor master and the quality info record, the system uses the QM system and the "valid to" date from the more detailed level (that is, the quality info record).

In Customizing for QM in Procurement (Define QM systems), you must set the indicator Certified QM system for the QM system that is presently in use.