Describing Quality Management in Sales and Distribution

Play the following video to learn more about quality inspections for outbound deliveries.

As stated above, the trigger point for the creation of an inspection lot for an outbound delivery item is always the creation of the delivery. From a system standpoint, it is irrelevant whether you create the delivery with or without reference to a sales order.

The following image shows different points in time when you can process a quality inspection for an outbound delivery.

Depending on your business process and the agreement between you and your customer, you can implement the following scenarios:

• Perform the quality inspection before shipping: In this case, you create a delivery and the system automatically creates the respective inspection lot. The Quality Technician then executes the quality inspection and the Quality Engineer records the usage decision. If they recorded a positive usage decision, the Warehouse Clerk can post the goods issue for the delivery. If they recorded a negative usage decision, the Warehouse Clerk cannot post the goods issue. Note that the Warehouse Clerk can never post a goods issue before the Quality Engineer recorded a usage decision.
• Perform the quality inspection in parallel to shipping: In this case, you also create a delivery and the system automatically creates the respective inspection lot. However, the Warehouse Clerk can already post the goods issue before the Quality Engineer completed the quality inspection with the usage decision.
• Bypass the quality inspection: In this case, you assume that your customer executes the quality inspection during goods receipt. Therefore, you skip the outbound quality inspection.

When using quality inspections in combination with outbound deliveries, the first scenario is the default one. The second scenario is only recommended in exceptional cases since it is possible that the goods have already left your compound before the quality department can execute a proper quality inspection. Usually, you use the third scenario if there is a quality agreement with your customer in place which allows outbound inspections to be skipped.