Inspection plans help you to describe how a quality inspection of one or several materials is to take place. In the inspection plan, you define the sequence of inspection operations and the range of specifications available for inspecting inspection characteristics.

You can integrate the following master data in your inspection plans:

• QM-specific data

• Other master data

The inspection plan has a similar structure to that of the routing. Inspection characteristics and test equipment (production resources/ tools) are assigned to one or more operations, which are in turn assigned to the inspection plan header.

The structure of the inspection plan header is similar to that of the routing. The information defined in the plan header serves as the specification for the entire plan. The following information is defined in the plan header:

• General plan data (for example, task list group, group counter, plant, task list usage, plan status, planner group responsible, validity of the plan for a certain lot-size range, old plan number)
• Information about dynamic modification and inspection points (for example, definition of inspection points, sample-drawing procedure, dynamic modification level, dynamic modification rule, dynamic modification criteria).
• Information about external numbering in results recording.
• Information about engineering change management (for example, change rule, change type).
• Administrative data (for example, change number, validity period, creator, created on, changed by, changed on and date last archived).

You can enter a long text for the task list header to describe the inspection plan in detail.

You assign one or more inspection operations to the inspection plan header. At the operation level, you define:

• How the inspection is to take place
• The work center for the inspection
• The sequence in which the inspections are to take place
• Default values (such as base quantity, unit of measure, conversion of units of measure (header/operation)

• Data for controlling results recording
• Information about the inspection point (reference, inspection point completion)

• Values for calculating appraisal costs
• User-specific fields

You can assign several inspection characteristics to each inspection operation. At inspection characteristic level, you define:

• What is to be inspected (characteristic number, short text, long text and master inspection characteristic, if required)
• Characteristic type (quantitative or qualitative inspection characteristic)
• Characteristic category (required characteristic, optional characteristic, conditional characteristic)
• Controls for results recording
• Control indicators for the inspection characteristic
• Quantitative data for the quantitative characteristic
• Characteristic attributes (catalog type 1) for the qualitative inspection characteristic
• Other catalogs
• Test equipment to be used (one for each inspection characteristic)
• Inspection method to be used (one for each inspection characteristic)
• Sampling procedure to be used (one for each inspection characteristic)
• Dynamic modification rule to be used (one for each inspection characteristic)

For inspection characteristics in an operation, you can define the following dependencies:

• Whether a characteristic (conditional characteristic) is to be inspected, based on whether the previous characteristic has been accepted or rejected.
• Whether the sample size for a characteristic (dependent characteristic) is to be dynamically modified using a leading characteristic.
• Whether the system is to calculate the characteristic value for a characteristic (calculated characteristic) using data from other characteristics that have been previously valuated.

The relevant material/vendor or material/customer combination has to be assigned to the inspection plan.

You can assign several items of test equipment to each inspection operation, but only one to each inspection characteristic. On the test equipment level you define:

• The test equipment (as production resources/tools) that is required for the inspection described in the operation
• The test equipment (as production resources/tools) that is required for the inspection of the inspection characteristic