Executing an In-Process Inspection

The quality planner defines in the master data that an inspection lot for an in-process inspection is required. The quality technician and the quality engineer must now apply the lifecycle of inspection lots to planned processes for in-production inspections. How does that work?

When you create a production (process) order, the system copies the routing (master recipe) to the order. In this case, the master data contain inspection characteristics at the operation level. They also contain an active inspection type for in-process inspection in the material master. The SAP S/4HANA system now creates an inspection lot upon order release.

Review the process in the example illustrated in the following figure.

1. In the example, the production supervisor creates a production order for 250 PC of a finished material, like a bike. The manufacturing process includes four steps: pre-assembly, assembly, quality inspection, and packaging. Only the pre-assembly and quality inspection steps have assigned inspection characteristics in the routing.

2. When the order is released, the system creates a single inspection lot for the entire production order. This establishes a direct connection between the order and the inspection lot for in-process inspection. The inspection lot consists of operations with inspection characteristics, excluding assembly and packaging.

3. Each inspection characteristic (for example, length, surface ok?, all measurements ok?) has a sample size assigned by the quality planner. The system calculates an individual sample size for each inspection characteristic based on assigned methods, which can be a percentage, a fixed number, or a 100% inspection. In the example, the measurements and the length must be inspected for 5 of the 250 manufactured items and the surface state must be inspected for 25 of the 250 manufactured items, corresponding to a 10 % inspection.

4. Similar to quality inspections for goods receipt, as discussed in the previous lesson, the quality technician records inspection results and, if needed, defects for each inspection characteristic within the inspection lot. After all results and defects are recorded, the quality engineer makes a usage decision and completes the processing of the inspection lot. Similar to the procurement business scenario, the usage decision reduces the entire quality inspection to a binary value (pass/fail).

Note

Regardless of whether you're in discrete manufacturing with production orders and routings or in process manufacturing with process orders and recipes, the perspective on quality inspection remains the same. If an in-process inspection type is assigned and active in the material master of the manufactured item, the system will automatically generate the inspection lot upon releasing the production or process order.

Unlike goods receipt inspections, in-process inspections in SAP S/4HANA do not manage any stock. Therefore, when the Quality Engineer makes a usage decision, it does not trigger a stock posting. The usage decision in this context holds less significance for subsequent business processes and is generally carried out for technical requirements or analytical purposes.

In this demonstration, you will see the following steps:

1. Create and release a production order
2. Record inspection results for the in-process inspection
3. Confirm production operation
4. Execute a usage decision

Note

If you have access to the practice system, you can now do the exercise Create Production Order and Record Inspection Results.