Describing Quality Collaboration and its Business Case

Quality Collaboration is the extension of features and benefits of SAP Quality Management processes.

Quality Collaboration enables Buyers and Suppliers to achieve real-time, bi-directional communication on the following quality processes:

• Quality Notification
• Quality Inspection
• Quality Review

The Quality Notification component of Quality Collaboration integrates with SAP Quality Notification module (QM-QN) to allow Buyers and Suppliers exchange information through SAP Business Network.

This component contains functionality for recording and processing different types of problems (for example, problems resulting from poor-quality goods or services). You can use Quality Notifications to analyze the recorded defects and monitor the correction of these problems. In particular, Quality Notifications can help you process internal or external problems, such as:

• Customer complaints

• Complaints against vendors

• Internal company problems

• Other user-specific problems

The Quality Inspection component of Quality Collaboration integrates with SAP Quality Management (QM-IM) to allow Buyers and Suppliers exchange information through SAP Business Network to facilitate quality inspections.

During the delivery of components, Buyers and Suppliers can collaborate on Quality Inspection of finished goods or subcontracting components to achieve improved overall quality metrics. Quality Inspection Collaboration supports the following functionality:

• Buyers can request the Supplier to perform a quality inspection based on a specified inspection lot.
• Suppliers can perform the inspection and send inspection results and an attached certificate of analysis to the Buyer.
• Buyers can review the inspection results and lock them, preventing the Supplier from making further changes.
• Buyers can respond to the inspection results by sending the usage decision for the inspection lot to Suppliers.
• Buyers and Suppliers can receive e-mail notifications for quality inspection documents.

Quality Review is a standalone Quality Collaboration feature that does not integrate with any back-end systems. Buyers and Suppliers can exchange information through SAP Business Network to facilitate quality reviews.

With the Quality Review Collaboration feature, SAP Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration enables Buyers to do the following:

• Batch records: Collaborate on batch record reviews, finalize batch record information, and allow quality releases of product bulk materials.
• Complaints: Collaborate on product complaint investigations from the Buyer’s customer.
• Change requests: Collaborate on material, process, or equipment changes.
• General: Collaborate on quality process-type definitions.