Implementing Quality Control in Procurement

If your company purchases materials from external vendors, you can implement QM in Procurement to support your procurement processes for quality assurance purposes. You can implement QM in Procurement as "stand-alone" or together with quality inspections. As a "stand-alone component", you can use all procurement functions except those for processing goods receipt inspections. To process such inspections, you need the Quality Inspections which are implemented by activating an inspection type of lot origin 01 for a material in a plant.

Play the following video to learn about which functions are available when the Quality Planner activates the QM in Procurement setting in the material master.

The Application Consultant defines the QM control key in Customizing under Quality Management → QM in Logistics → QM in Procurement → Define Control Keys. This key determines which functions are active for quality management in procurement. It is also possible to activate more than one function in a control key.

When combining QM in procurement with the generation of inspection lots for inspection lot origin 01 (Goods Receipt for Purchase Orders), you can:

• Inspect vendor goods upon receipt (goods receipt inspections)

• Manage the posted goods in inspection stock

Note that, depending on the detailed settings of the QM Control Key, additional fields in the QM view of the material master (for example quality certificate type, required QM system, and so on) must be maintained. In other cases, additional master data records (for example the Quality Info Record Procurement, document info records, and so on) must be maintained before the respective process can be executed.

Furthermore, a required QM system can be defined on material level. When creating a purchase order, the system compares the supplier QM system to the required QM system of the material and blocks the creation of the purchase order if the required QM system of the material does not fit to the suppliers QM system.

To activate QM in Procurement, the Quality Planner performs the following steps:

• Change the QM View of a material master.
• Set the QM in Procurement Active indicator.
• Maintain a control key enabling the required functionality.

The quality info record defines details how you procure a material from a vendor. It is uniquely determined by the plant, vendor, and material. The following image shows the settings the Quality Planner can make in the Quality Info Record for Procurement:

If you require vendor release or a quality assurance agreement, you must create a quality info record for the relevant combination. You also control, whether:

• The quality info record is released so that the material can be purchased from the vendor. It is also possible to restrict the release to a certain period of time or a certain quantity. For example, the Quality Planner allows that only 100 PC of a certain material can be procured from a certain vendor until end of this year. When the Procurement Specialist creates a purchase order with a higher quantity and/or for a later date, the system forbids this.

• A block for quality reasons is active in order to block the creation of a request for quotation, a purchase order, or a goods receipt. For example, the vendor delivered goods in bad quality in the past and the Quality Engineer wants to block additional purchases from this supplier until the quality problems have been resolved.

• A user status profile is active in order to model a purchasing process with release stages (for example, first-article, preliminary series, regular procurement). Each stage can be assigned to an inspection type which, again, can be assigned to an inspection plan usage so that you can perform different quality inspections depending on the current stage of your supply relationship. For example, during first-article inspection of a material, the Quality Technician performs a more detailed goods receipt inspection than for a material that you procure regularly from the supplier.

  Note

  When using this process, it is not possible to post a goods receipt for a material-supplier combination if an inspection lot is still open and the purchasing process has not reached the final status. In other words, while the model series procurement, preliminary series procurement, and so on, is ongoing, only sequential goods receipts can be posted.

• A source inspection should be performed alternatively to a goods receipt inspection. A source inspection is usually executed at the supplier before the goods are shipped to the customer. You use this process if, for example, transportation costs are high in comparison to the price of the product and you want to ensure that only products in good shape are shipped. You can trigger the respective inspection lots for outstanding purchase orders and scheduling agreements by periodically running a report.

• Goods receipt inspections can be skipped for certified suppliers. To skip a goods receipt inspection, you define the requirements for a supplier's QM system in the material master of the purchased material. You furthermore define the implemented supplier's QM system in the supplier master record (if valid for all materials purchased from this supplier) or in the Quality Info Record for Purchasing (if only valid for the material-supplier combination). In customizing, the Application Consultant defines a relationship between the required and implemented QM system. If there is a fit and the implemented QM system is marked as Certified QM System, the system does not create an inspection lot when goods are procured from this supplier and directly posts the goods to unrestricted-use stock.

If defined in the QM control key in the QM view of the material master, quality assurance agreement document info records must be linked to the quality info record.

The Quality Planner can create, display, and manage quality info records using the Manage Quality Info Records application.

If you purchase a material where the QM in Procurement is active in the SAP S/4HANA system, the business process typically consists of the following steps:

1. The Purchaser creates a purchase order.
2. The Warehouse Clerk posts the goods receipt for the purchase order.
3. The Quality Technician executes the quality inspection by capturing inspection results and/or defects for the inspection lot.
4. The Quality Engineer posts the usage decision.