Executing Stock Transfers

You can use inspection lots of inspection types 08 to perform stock transfer inspections either inside the same plant or from one plant to another plant. The following image shows an example for a stock transfer within one plant or between two different plants respectively:

In the first example, the warehouse clerk moves stock of a material from storage location 101A to storage location 101B inside the same plant. Because an inspection type of inspection lot origin 08 is assigned and active in the material master, the system creates a respective inspection lot and moves the transferred stock into quality inspection stock. Once the moved materials have been inspected, the quality engineer posts a usage decision, and the system transfers the quantity to unrestricted-use stock. In the second example, a similar process flow is executed: The warehouse clerk moves stock from storage location 101A in plant 1010 to storage location 102A in plant 1020. The system then creates the inspection lot in the receiving plant where the quality technician and quality engineer perform results-recording and make a usage decision. Together with the usage decision, the system moves the inspected stock to unrestricted-use from where it can be consumed by subsequent processes.

The Inspection for a Stock Transfer process describes how the system creates an inspection lot automatically for a stock transfer. In a stock transfer, a material is moved from the following:

• One storage location to another within the same plant

• One storage location in a plant to another storage location in a second plant

This process can, for example, be applied to inspect materials after the physical transfer from one storage location to another. It is also possible to transfer materials from unrestricted-use stock to quality inspection stock at the same storage location, for example, in order to execute an additional quality inspection for manufactured materials before they are packaged.

When a stock transfer is posted for a material for which QM is active, the system creates an inspection lot that is stock-relevant. The goods are usually posted to inspection stock for the duration of the quality inspection.

The system creates an inspection lot automatically for a stock transfer if the following conditions have been met:

• In Customizing for Inspection Lot Creation (Inspection for a Goods Movement), QM is active for the movement type, for example 301 (transfer cross-plant) or 311 (transfer within plant) respectively.

• QM is active for the material. This means that in the inspection settings of the material master:

  • An inspection type is active for inspection lot origin 08 (stock transfer).

  • The indicator to post the goods to inspection stock is set.

The business process flow is as follows:

1. The warehouse clerk posts a stock transfer, for example using the Transfer Stock - In Plant application.
2. The system creates an inspection lot.
3. If required and set up in the QM view of the material master, the system assigns inspection specifications to the inspection lot and calculates the sample size.
4. The quality technician captures inspection results and/or defects.
5. The quality engineer posts an appropriate usage decision. Together with the usage decision, the system usually executes a respective stock posting, for example, back to unrestricted-use stock (if the inspection passed) or to blocked stock (if the inspection failed).

The following image illustrates the process of stock transfer if the stock in quality inspection is managed by an inspection lot.

In the example, the warehouse clerk moves stock from storage location 101A to 101B. The system creates an inspection lot due to the settings in the material master. During the inspection, it is noted that the receiving storage location 101B is incorrect and the stock must be moved to storage location 101C instead. Because the quantity is managed by an inspection lot, it's not possible to move the stock using an app from inventory management. Instead, the Quality Technician performs the stock posting via the inspection lot and executes the quality inspection at storage location 101C. Finally, the Quality Engineer reviews the inspection result and makes a positive usage decision so that the system moves the stock from quality inspection to unrestricted use.

The Transfer of Inspection Stock function allows you to transfer the material stock in an inspection lot from one physical location to another, while the goods are still managed in inspection stock. You can transfer the actual lot quantity to another storage location or another plant (for example, if you want to complete the inspection at another location).

When you transfer the stock to an inspection lot, the system creates a new material document in inventory management to record the stock transfer. The inspection lot record contains all information relating to the original and new material documents, allowing you to track the stock transfers. In addition, when transferring the material stock of an inspection stock, you can specify additional information - for example, a reason for making the stock transfer, the creation data for the material document and the posting date for the stock transfer.

The respective business process consists of the following steps:

1. The quality technician opens the inspection lot, for example, using the Manage Inspection Lots application.
2. The quality technician selects the inspection lot and chooses Move Inspection Stock.

In some cases, companies activate QM after they have already implemented materials management and inventory management productively. As a result, materials may have been posted to inspection stock using the functions of the inventory management without the creation of inspection lots managing the respective quantities.

In such cases, you can only activate inspection types for stock-relevant materials if you perform one of the following steps:

• Post the goods out of inspection stock into unrestricted-use stock manually using the functions of the inventory management (before you try to activate a stock-relevant inspection type). As the stock is shortly in unrestricted-use, it can potentially be used by anyone for subsequent processes. Henceforth, this approach is not recommended.
• Activate the desired stock-relevant inspection types using the function for making mass changes to the inspection settings (Change QM Inspection Setup - Collective Processing app or transaction QA08).

If you activate a stock-relevant inspection type using the function for making mass changes to inspection settings, the system creates inspection lots in the background for the materials in inspection stock:

• It creates single inspection lots for each material, storage location, and special stock, regardless of the number of goods receipts.
• It creates a single inspection lot for each batch.
• It uses the inspection type specified for inspection stock in Customizing (Maintain settings at Plant Level, for example inspection type 0800).

When the system has created the inspection lots, you can post the goods out of inspection stock when you make the usage decision for the lots. As the stock is now managed using inspection lots, the posting from inspection to unrestricted use stock using only MM functions (for example, transaction MIGO) is not possible any more.