How tightly SAP Quality Management is integrated with SAP Event Management?

[Former Member]

Evolution of Quality Management

Today we will discuss quality management. This is not a new evolution; it has existed since 1924, when Walter A Stewart created a structured statistical method for production quality control and his methods became the foundation of quality control today. Later, Dr. W. Edwards-Deming applied new statistical methods using Stewart’s ideas that he mastered and finalized and which became well known to the quality management world.

The single word: “quality” has changed the economy of countries over periods of time. Post World War II, the Japanese economy was in very bad shape. Their determination towards achieving “Quality” helped to improve their reputation and the economy over a few decades. Dr. W. Edwards-Deming taught the Japanese fourteen principles. These principles are now the foundation of Japanese success in quality. If you ask anyone in the world, they will make the stereotype that “Japan” means “Quality”. Due to the high level of quality, Japanese products take a big piece of revenue from around the world, especially in the car market.

My personal experience with Japanese - I had the opportunity to work with a Japanese team for one of our esteemed clients on SAP Quality Management implementation project. I was amazed about their knowledge and 100% expectation on the quality side of system details, documentation, business processes, process flows, testing and their hierarchical way of working.

Quality Standards

Today, quality becomes an inevitable requirement for all products, so a quality standard has become an integral part of all companies. There are many quality standards like ISO, Six Sigma, Kaizen, QFD, TQM, Toyota Production system etc. that exist to help companies maintain quality compliance. People today are more concerned about health and safety issues, and the quality standard companies help to protect the people, processes and technology. Using and consuming poor quality products results in deep pocket experiences or sometimes worse, can result in fatalities.

Enterprise Resource Planning System

Quality management is an integral part of one of the modules in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. If the client is in the business of manufacturing, then there is no other option but to implement a quality management module. The ERP system provides quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement in their manufacturing or business processes. Some companies use a quality management module to capture exceptions in their processes such as incorrect order submission, incorrect claims, missing shipments, downgraded products, missing SLA, monitoring team notifications etc. So quality management can be considered a versatile system and it can be adapted and used in many areas.

SAP Quality Management

SAP ERP delivers its own quality management module to integrate and run QM functions across product life cycle and supply chain. Quality management has 20 elements integrated into the SAP ERP system adhering to the ISO 9000 quality standard, so you can use QM alone or conjunction with following modules SD, MM, PM, PP, PS, CO and HR.

The main scope of Quality Management in SAP ERP:

• Quality Engineering
• Quality Assurance and Control
• Quality Improvement
• Audit Management

Quality Management Components in SAP ERP

• Quality Planning
• Quality Inspection
• Quality Control
• Quality Certificates
• Quality Notifications

Though it has many functions and required components, the real time visibility and proactive approach model are not implemented yet in SAP Quality Management.

Real time visibility and proactive approach using SAP Event Management for SAP Quality Management

Using SAP EM for SAP QM, it is possible to implement visibility and a proactive approach such as the following examples:

• Trigger alert via Email, SMS or Fax, when Inspection lot is created
• Trigger alert via Email, SMS or Fax, when quality notification is created
• Trigger alert via Email, SMS or Fax for partial /full usage decision is made
• Send an automatic alert to inspection team, when product samples are arrived at quality labs
• Send an automatic alert to the 3PL warehouse team to move stock into restricted use, when stock is moved into blocked stock
• Report to the relevant team if the usage decision is not taking place by specified time
• Alert the relevant team when specific product groups have been made auto usage decision
• Alert the quality team when high end products are sitting more days in quality/blocked stocks
• Trigger a workflow, when an inspection lot created for specific customer material samples greater than 10%
• Automatically move a particular batch or all the batches, when a usage decision fails
• Trigger an email to the quality inspection team, when a specific inspection type is created
• Cancel all purchase orders of a vendor, when a customer returns a product more times than a threshold and alert the purchasing and sales team
• Notify relevant partners to approve or reject when quality notifications are overdue
• Alert quality labs when certain DEFECTS are found in products
• Report failures accurately due to customers mishandling, quality of vendors, internal production problems, particular ingredients or products causing an issue and perform analytical reporting through SAP BI.

SAP Event Management delivers standard business process types for SAP Quality Management

The following standard business process types are delivered through SAP EM for SAP QM:

• EPL_INSPLOT – Quality Inspection Lot
• EPL_NOTIF – Quality Notification

Chat/connect with me how to implement SAP Event Management on SAP Quality Management for exceptions, continuous improvement, submit COA documents, sample failures, recall management, track and trace in shop floor, GS1 GLN location identification shop floor/quality inspection area, track and trace serialized products (hierarchy and using GTIN), track and trace lot/batch (using GS1 GTIN), track and trace multi-packing (mixed packing, overpacking, partial packing (using GS1 SSCC), inspection characteristic routing, engineering change etc.