Sample Management During Production (SAP Library

Sample Management During Production

Overview

The requirements for drawing physical samples in production may vary from one process to another, depending on different factors (for example, the type of production process, the type of product being produced, and the number of production stages). A production process typically consists of different production stages or operations that describe how a product is produced. In the course of the production process, the physical properties of the product usually change from one operation to the next. In view of these changes, the procedure for drawing the physical samples and the number of required physical-sample drawings may also change in the course of the production process. For this reason, you may need different instructions for drawing physical samples at different production stages.

In general, you have the following possibilities for drawing physical samples in production:

Planning a physical-sample drawing

You can plan the physical-sample drawing by defining a sample drawing procedure and assigning it to the routing or recipe. In this case, the system creates the physical samples automatically when an inspection lot is created.

Drawing physical samples manually

You draw the physical samples manually on the basis of such criteria as time or quantity (for example, you draw a physical sample every three hours or after every 1000 liters). In this case, you do not plan the drawing of physical samples in a sample-drawing procedure. You create them manually with reference to an inspection lot or order.

Note

If necessary, you can combine both of the above methods in your production process.

Guidelines

You can only plan the first physical-sample drawing in a production process. When you plan a physical-sample drawing, the system automatically creates the physical samples and the inspection specifications for results recording when it creates an inspection lot.

If you want to plan the drawing of different physical samples in different operations of the production process, you must define a separate physical-sample drawing item in the physical-sample drawing procedure for each inspection-relevant operation.

For each operation that contains inspection-relevant characteristics, you can process one or more physical-sample drawings. However, you can only plan the first of several physical-sample drawings.

After the first planned drawing, you must carry out all physical-sample drawings manually. This means you must create new physical-sample drawings with reference to an inspection lot, production order, run schedule header, or process order.

Activities

The following questions and answers can help you determine how to proceed:

What do I have to do if I want to plan and process physical samples in production?

Plan the physical samples for the first physical-sample drawing in a physical sample drawing procedure.
Assign the sample drawing procedure to the routing or recipe.
After the system creates the inspection lot, record inspection results for the automatically created physical samples.

What do I have to do if I want to plan and inspect different physical samples and a different number of physical samples in each operation?

You must make sure that the system finds a separate and distinct sample-drawing item for each operation. This is achieved through the partial-sample numbers, which define the validity of a sample-drawing item and its assignment to the partial-sample at the characteristic level of an operation.

How can I process additional physical-sample drawings after the first physical sample drawing?

Create a new physical-sample drawing manually with reference to an inspection lot or order.
In the operation for which you created the new physical-sample drawing, record inspection results for the physical samples.