Using Defects and Quality Tasks

Heli just wants to document a production defect and the corresponding repair action. A component broke during assembly and the defective component must be exchanged. As you may remember from the previous chapter´s discussion about the data model and processing quality notifications, the quality notification in SAP S/4HANA is a complex business object.

Must Heli create a quality notification for such a generic defect with all the contained information?

Certainly not!

For such a use case, SAP S/4HANA offers a simplified version of the quality notification, the Generic Defect. You can think of the Generic Defect as a quality notification with no notification header. From a business perspective, you use the Generic Defect to document an issue and define one or more tasks, for example, to define corrective actions.

Defects can occur throughout your company. As such, SAP S/4HANA offers different defect categories:

• Production defects

  Defects of the defect categoryProduction Defect contain production-relevant information from the production order. You record these defects in the Record Production Defects app. Since the defect relates to production, you can specify a production order, production operation, the manufactured material, and the work center where the defect is discovered or occurred. When you maintain the production order and/or operation, the system proposes related data.

• Warehouse defects

  Defects of the defect category Warehouse Defect include warehouse-relevant information. From a business perspective, you use this defect category if you identified defective stock for a material.

  Note

  If you use Extended Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA, you can also use the warehouse defect to block stock in storage bins. For more information, refer to the SAP Application Assistance in the SAP Help portal.

• Generic defect

  Defects of the category generic defect are independent of any specific reference object, such as an inspection lot, a material, or a production order. You record generic defects in the Record Defect app. From a business perspective, if a defect does not match either of the other two categories, you always record a generic defect.

Depending on the nature of the defect, you choose the respective app to create the defect. Based on the defect category, the system offers different fields where you can record the necessary information.

After you recorded the defect, you define one or more corrective actions, for example, repair, additional warehouse inspection, and tightening goods receipt inspection severity. You always enter a task processor business partner that is informed and responsible for the execution.

After they execute the task, they document feedback in the system and complete the task by changing the status accordingly.

Finally, the quality engineer is informed by the system that all tasks are complete. Then, they review the task outcome and close the defect. If the tasks are unsuccessful, the quality engineer can define additional tasks. Once everything is okay, they close the defect.

In some cases during defect analysis and execution of the action, you can find that a more comprehensive (and perhaps formally structured) solution approach is required. SAP S/4HANA offers two different approaches:

• You can transfer defects to quality notifications and continue further processing within the notification. For example, you can transfer the affected quantity of the material to quality inspection stock and create an inspection lot for more in-depth analysis. The Transfer Defects to Notification function serves this purpose and is available in the Manage Defects app. You can choose to transfer defects to either an existing quality notification or a new one. The defect data gets transferred to a notification item.

  You would employ this approach if the defect doesn't require formal processing, such as using the 8D method.

• Alternatively, you can initiate a problem-solving process from a defect following the 8D method. To achieve this, choose Start Problem-Solving Process within a defect. This generates an 8D issue, which you can access and edit in the Resolve Internal Problems app. Data from the defect is then transferred to the 8D issue.

  You would adopt this approach if, for example, you are an automotive supplier, or your company is involved in the aerospace and defense or medical devices sector, and you're obliged to handle defects using the 8D method.

  Note

  We will briefly discuss the 8D method and how it is supported in SAP S/4HANA in the next chapter.

In the this SAP S/4HANA system demonstration, you will see the following steps:

1. Create production defect
2. Review production defect and create quality task
3. Execute quality task
4. Review executed task and complete production defect