Planning the Sample-Drawing Procedure (SAP Library

Planning the Sample-Drawing Procedure

Purpose

The purpose of planning a sample-drawing procedure is to:

Define your strategy for creating and drawing physical samples
Implement your strategy by providing the system with specific instructions on how to create the physical samples

This process provides an example that shows how the system calculates the physical sample size based on the information you enter in the sample-drawing procedure.

Process Flow

You evaluate your procedures for processing inspections and determine which criteria will be important for creating sample-drawing procedures.

In many companies, the procedures for drawing physical samples are based on how materials are processed in an inspection. For example, an inspection planner typically assigns all materials that are inspected in the same way to the same inspection plan. Because you have to assign the sample-drawing procedure to the inspection plan header to activate the functions for sample management, all materials assigned to the inspection plan also use the same sample-drawing procedure.

You must evaluate your company’s procedures and criteria for drawing physical samples and define your sample-drawing procedures accordingly.

You specify how the number of physical samples will be calculated.

In each sample-drawing procedure, you must specify whether the system should calculate the number of physical samples on the basis of the lot quantity in the base unit of measure (for example, 1000 liters) or on the basis of the number of lot containers and lot container type (for example, five barrels).

You specify whether the drawing of the physical samples needs to be confirmed.

In a sample-drawing procedure, you can activate a function that requires the drawing of physical samples to be confirmed. This means that when the system creates physical-sample records, the records are not released until you confirm the physical-sample drawing. As long as a record is not released, you cannot record inspection results for the physical sample. If you do not activate this function, the system releases the records automatically when they are created.

For more information about the statuses of physical samples, see Status Management for Physical-Sample Records.

You define one or more sample-drawing items in a sample-drawing procedure.

A sample-drawing item contains specific instructions on how many physical samples should be created for a material and how they should be created. You must define at least one sample-drawing item in each sample-drawing procedure.

You may need to define several different sample-drawing items if:

You want to draw a different number of physical samples for different partial-sample numbers in the inspection plan.
The materials are delivered in different types of containers and you have different procedures for drawing physical samples based from each container type.

You specify which categories of physical samples must be created for each sample-drawing item:

Primary samples (1st stage)

Physical samples drawn directly from a material or batch that will be inspected or used to create pooled samples.

Pooled samples (2nd stage)

Physical samples to be created by mixing the contents of two or more primary samples from the same material or batch.

Reserve samples

Primary physical samples drawn from a material or batch reserved for future inspection.

The following table shows which physical samples are normally distributed to the laboratories and inspected, based on the physical samples that are created:

If you create	You inspect
Primary samples	Primary samples
Primary and reserve samples	Primary samples only
Primary and pooled samples	Pooled samples only
Primary, pooled, and reserve samples	Pooled samples only

You specify how many physical samples must be created.

In each sample-drawing item, you must specify how many primary, pooled, and reserve samples should be created. You have the following options:

For primary and pooled samples, you can specify:	For reserve samples, you can only specify:
A fixed number of physical samples	A fixed number of physical samples
A sampling scheme to allow the system to determine the number of physical samples automatically based on the inspection lot quantity
A formula to have the system calculate the number of samples The SAP formula interpreter supports the following formula parameters to calculate the number of physical samples: Lot quantity (P1) Number of lot containers (P2) Number of primary samples (P3) For example, if you want to draw one physical sample from each lot container, you can simply enter the parameter "P2" in the formula field.

For primary and pooled samples, you can also enter a size factor that instructs the system to create a greater quantity of physical samples than you need for the current inspection. For example, if you specify a factor of "3," the system creates sufficient quantities of physical samples for you to carry out three inspections.

You should understand how the system calculates the number and sizes of physical samples. For an explanation, refer to the example Determining the Physical-Sample Sizes.