Configuring Defect Recording

Recording defects is an important step in the inspection lot lifecycle. Play the video to meet Brian, the Quality Technician, sharing his experience with recording defects in SAP S/4HANA.

The following figure illustrates the inspection lifecycle in three process variants with a focus on recording defects:

When an event occurs, such as posting the goods receipt for a material with an active inspection type 01, the system automatically creates the inspection lot and determines the sample size.

Then, the Quality Technician records inspection results and documents defects. Defect recording involves selecting the appropriate defect code from the list of defects maintained by the Quality Planner and providing minimal input to the underlying quality notification. This allows for further processing, such as through the 8D approach, as a supplier complaint, or as an internal deviation.

As shown in the image, there are three possible process variants:

1. Result recording and defect recording: In this process variant, the Quality Technician records inspection results for all characteristics in the task list. If they find additional issues, they create one or more defect records and describe the issue in coded and freetext format. If the Quality Planner defined in the inspection characteristic that the system automatically creates a defect record if the characteristic is rejected, the Quality Technician completes the data in the defect.

   From a business perspective, this process provides the most data in a structured format. However, it requires comprehensive master data, such as inspection plans, master inspection characteristics, sampling procedures, and codes. It also generates many transactional data objects, including inspection results and quality notifications with defect records.

2. Defect recording without result recording: In this process variant, the Quality Technician does not record inspection results. Instead, they perform a quality inspection based on an inspection protocol described in a standard operating procedure outside the system. If they identify issues, they document them in a defect record in coded and freetext format.

   From a business perspective, this process variant is easy and lean as it does not require comprehensive maintenance of master data. However, it is important to carefully define when the usage decision can be made since the system does not have visibility into whether there are no defects or if the inspection process has not yet begun.

3. Result recording without defect recording: In this process variant, the Quality Technician only records inspection results.

   This variant is commonly used and has the advantage of a clearly defined inspection process in the task list. It also limits the amount of transactional data, as only inspection results are recorded without defect records.

As always, the Quality Engineer finalizes inspection lot processing by making a usage decision.

Defect records in the system are initially inactive, whether created automatically or manually. The system internally stores these inactive defect records as quality notifications with the status of Outstanding notification and Defects Recording.

To inform the responsible person or activate a quality notification, the system can automatically trigger a SAP Business workflow task or activate a quality notification using defect classes.

There are several options to create defect records in the system:

• Defect records can be manually created for an inspection lot using any of the Create Defects apps. Additionally, the Quality Technician can record defects for an operation or inspection characteristic when performing an inspection with a task list or material specification.

• The Quality Technician can switch to defects recording while performing results recording. This allows them to record defects directly with reference to the current inspection operation or inspection characteristic.

• The Quality Engineer can also record a defect when making the usage decision.

• The system can automatically create defect records within results recording if the inspection characteristic is rejected during valuation and the Quality Planner has enabled this feature in the inspection characteristic (→ Control indicator Defects Recording). It is important to note that you must assign the corresponding defect codes to the inspection characteristic. For example, if a numeric characteristic is rejected, you can assign an individual defect code. Additionally, you can consider whether the tolerance limit is violated in the upper or lower direction by assigning a specific defect code.

To plan defects recording, the Quality Planner and the Application consultant must work hand in hand. They must set up:

• Defect code groups and codes in catalog type 9 to define which defects are possible
• Defect class to determine the defect criticality and potential follow-up actions that are triggered when the Quality Technician records the defect
• Catalog profile to group defect code groups together and assign them, for example, to a material
• Confirmation profile to define which fields are visible, optional, or mandatory when the Quality Technician records a defect
• Report type to link the confirmation profile (→ defect content) and the catalog profile (→ possible defect codes) together. The report type can either be linked to a work center or manually entered by the Quality Technician when recording a defect and therefore influences the fields and values the system shows to the user when they record a defect.

We will have a deeper look into all elements in this chapter.

Confirmation Profile

In the confirmation profile, the Application Consultant specifies which fields are to appear on the screens when the Quality Technician records defects and whether the user must enter data in these fields (→ mandatory) or whether an entry is only optional. The following data fields are available:

• Defect code and description
• Defect location code
• Assembly
• Cause code and description
• Activity code and description
• Defect valuation

A simple confirmation profile which allows for the recording of the number of defects, the defect type, and the defect description could look as follows:

Confirmation Profile for the Number of Defects

The example shows a simple confirmation profile that can be used to record the number of defects of each defect type. The defect code is mandatory, the defect description is optional, and all other fields (defect location, assembly, cause, cause text, activity, activity text, and defect valuation) are hidden. As a result, the Quality Technician must record the defect code group and code which give detailed information of the defect. In addition, they can add additional information in freetext format to further describe the defect. Also, they can record the number of defects and the defect class.

Hint

To create a confirmation profile, the Application Consultant uses the IMG activity Quality Management → Quality Notifications → Defects Recording → Define Confirmation Profile

Report Type

The report type restricts the size and contents of the defect data records. In the report type, the Application Consultant links a confirmation profile (→ which fields are available, mandatory, or optional) to a catalog profile (→ which code groups are available?) and defines the origin of a catalog profile:

Usually, each department that records defects needs its own recording forms. For example, the department that carries out visual inspections can only make a note of the defect type and defect location, while a department that makes defect analyses and carries out repairs also records the defect cause, the defect valuation and activities. You can use the report type to provide each recording center with the appropriate form for recording defects by assigning the report types to work centers.

Hint

If required, you can also fine-tune the report type on a user-specific level via the user parameter QFE. This assignment takes priority over the assignment to the work center.

If there is no work center available because the inspection is to take place without an inspection plan or the inspection operations don't contain a work center, the Quality Technician can specify the report type on the initial screen of defects recording.

Finally, the Application Consultant defines in the report type to control how the system accesses the catalog profile:

• If you always want to use the catalog profile from the report type, assign a catalog profile to the report type, but do not set the indicators for the notification type or the material.

• If you always want to use the catalog profile for the material, you must set the material indicator. If the material does not have a catalog profile assigned to it, the system takes the profile from the report type.

• If you always want to use the catalog profile for the notification type, you must set the Notification type indicator.

If both indicators are set (notification type and material), the catalog profile assigned to the material takes precedence over the profile that has been assigned to the notification type.

The following image shows the lifecycle of the defect that is identified during the quality inspection:

When the Quality Technician discovers a defect during the quality inspection, they create a defect record with mandatory and optional information as defined in the confirmation profile. Technically, the system creates a quality notification with the system status values Outstanding Notification and Defects Recording. The defect itself corresponds to a defect item in the notification. Depending on whether the Quality Engineer only wants to evaluate the number of defects or process them by defining and implementing immediate, corrective, or preventive actions, a notification an be activated (→ define actions) or kept in the initial status (→ evaluation only).

All quality notifications for an inspection lot that have the status values Outstanding Notification and Defects Recording are completed when the Quality Engineer makes the usage decision.

The system automatically activates the notification if one of the following occurs:

• The Quality Technician/Engineer activate a quality notification manually by choosing a button.

• The Quality Technician selected a defect with a defect class for which the Application Consultant set a respective indicator in the Customizing settings of the defect class.

• The Quality Engineer/Technician make one of the following changes in the notification:

  • They enter a priority.

  • They enter a notification text.

  • They enter a subject code on notification level.

  • They assign a responsible partner for notification processing.

  • They define one or more tasks.

In all cases, the status of this notification changes to Outstanding notification and the status value Defects recording is deactivated. These notifications are not automatically closed with the usage decision since it is assumed that actions must be performed to analyze or correct the defect, find the root cause, or define and implement preventive actions.

To summarize this chapter, let us have a look on the various inspection process variants with defects:

Depending on your business process, defects recording can be performed according to certain variants:

1. Variant 1 represents the simplest form of defects recording available. If required, defects are recorded manually for an existing inspection lot on the basis of defect codes. Since you don't use inspection plans, the inspection is not structured and the defect can only be logged against the inspection lot.

2. Variant 2 uses task lists (inspection plan, routing, master recipe, and so on) to structure the inspection via different operations (for example visual inspection, functional inspection, and so on). You can therefore record defects for both the inspection lot and operations from the task list.

3. Variant 3 uses task lists with operations and characteristics to structure the inspection. You can, in addition to the inspection results, record characteristic defects. Defects recording in this variant is called up manually, either when recording inspection results, or by accessing defects recording for the characteristic. Using this variant, it is possible for you to be very precise when recording defects since each defect can be attached to the characteristic for which it was identified.

4. Variant 4 also uses task lists with operations and characteristics. However, the Quality Planner defined on the characteristics level that, when rejected, the system automatically switches to the dialog for defects recording, or it generates a notification in the background containing the defect code planned for the inspection characteristic.