SAP QM (Quality Management) Tutorial

SAP QM Tutorial : SAP QM (Quality Management) is an integral portion of different business processes of SAP like sales, production, procurement, material management, etc. This training module will explain step-by-step and how some of the major components with settings.

Quality Management has often been a sort after skill in SAP and it complements the PP Module. In this document and the next we will focus on the Quality Management Module which will increase your job opportunities and diversify your SAP skills. So here we go.

SAP QM -Quality Management Module deals with all traditional functions of quality in an organization. The integration of the QM application component in the SAP system allows quality management tasks to be combined with those in other applications (such as materials management, production, sales and distribution and cost accounting).

SAP QM Tutorial

Quality Management Module deals with all the traditional functions of Quality in an organization. It is a kind of add on Module and may be implemented at the beginning itself or it may also be implemented after go-live.

There are six major Quality Management components in module as below,

SAP QM Quality Management components

Basic data and settings at Plant level

Common required configuration settings across the QM module are defined here. Certain settings (like selected set, code and code group, inspection point) can be defined at plant level in addition to the other level where it is available.

QM Module plant level control data are defined in this setting.

1. Version control for Master Inspection characteristics and Inspection Method

1. Time duration for automatic UD

Quality in Procurement 

Quality control over the procurement activities like

1. Controlling payment
2. Restricting vendor supply
3. Control on source inspection
4. Control if certificates are not received

Quality Master Data 

Master Data are essential to perform transactions. To create master data, certain configuration settings which are listed below.

• Master Inspection Characteristics creation,
• Codes in QM
• Sampling procedure
• Task list type to material type for inspection

Quality Inspection

Appropriate type of inspection lot creation with respect to different movements is defined in this setting. Apart from the above control of inspection type creation, other blow settings are done.

• Inspection type definition
• Default setting for inspection type
• Inspection control for movement types
• Defining Physical sample parameters
• Result recording configuration

This functional capability is used to constantly check the quality of the company’s products. Therefore, the inspection plans and characteristics are used. The inspection process mainly consists of the following four steps:

Inspection can be triggered at a number of inspection origins:

• Inspection lot creation: in SAP QM, all quality inspections are based on inspection lots. These can be triggered manually or automatically (e.g. at goods receipt from a purchase order, at goods issue of a component, at a certain operation during production, etc.). The lots contain specific information about the inspection size (e.g. based on the sampling procedure), inspection characteristics and methods from the inspection plan or material specification, etc.
• Results Recording: After inspecting the products, the quantitative (e.g. width/height of product) and/or qualitative (e.g. color of the product) results of the predefined characteristics can be directly recorded in the inspection lot.
• Defects recording: Defects can be recorded additional to the results recording. These defects are also referenced to an inspection lot and contain information about any attribute of a material/product/process that deviates from the defined characteristics. The defect recording can be based on standardized codes that can be taken from the predefined inspection catalogs.

• Inspection lot completion: A completion of the inspection lot is necessary after results recording to finally decide about the usage of a material. Depending on the usage decision, stock postings are performed (e.g. to unrestricted-use stock, blocked stock, scrap, etc.). The usage decision also influences the quality level and the quality score of a material or inspection lot

Quality certificate

Type of Quality certificate, source from where the data are to be picked up, Lots to which lots certificates are allowed to be printed are described in this settings. It is mainly defined through

• Certificate profile
• Certificate form

Quality Notification

Quality notification is the process of informing about the deviation to the respective persons. There can be different notification types for different purposes.

Settings defined here are

• Notification type
• Screen control

Quality Planning

Quality planning enables you to manage basic data for quality, inspection planning and material specifications.

The integration of the Quality planning component in the SAP system allows quality planning tasks to be combined with those of other components such as materials management, batch management, inventory management, variant configuration and cost accounting.

Quality inspection covers the following functions:

• Master data management (material master, catalogs, selected sets, master inspection characteristics, class characteristics, inspection methods, sampling procedures, sampling schemes, dynamic modification rules, sample-drawing procedures, QM work centers).

• Inspection planning (inspection plans, reference operation sets, material specifications).

What is SAP QM Inspection Lot Creation?

In the Quality Management (QM) component, process quality inspections on the basis of Inspection lots. If you want to inspect a specific quantity of a material or a piece of equipment, an inspection lot must be created in the system.We can create the inspection lots automatically or manually and how you use the inspection lots to process different types of inspections. Once an inspection lot has been created, you can inspect the goods, record the inspection results or defects, and complete the inspection with a usage decision.

SAP QM (Quality Management) Features

The QM application component supports tasks associated with quality planning, quality inspection and quality control. In addition, it controls the creation of quality certificates and manages problems with the help of quality notifications.

The following components are available in SAP QM:

• Basic data (for example, material master, catalogs, inspection characteristics, inspection methodsand sampling procedures).
• Inspection planning (inspection plans, reference operation sets, material specifications).
• QM in procurement.
• QM in sales and distribution
• Inspection lot processing (inspection lot creation and inspection lot completion)
• Results recording
• Defects recording
• Sample management
• Quality Information System
• Dynamic modification of the inspection scope
• Quality certificates
• Quality notifications
• Test equipment management

SAP QM Tutorial for beginners explain what SAP QM (Quality Management), and it gives a brief understanding of messaging and important SAP QM module concepts are explained above post. I will be adding more posts in SAP QM Tutorial , so please bookmark the post for future reference too.