Inspection lot for sub vendor?

[Former Member]

Dear guru's

I am not able to create an inspection lot for the raw materials, the scenario is Clint have one vendor, under this vendor 18 sub parties are there. MM people have maintain vendor records, but they are not maintain sub parties records. Issue is QM department required inspection lot based on sub parties but MM people create po based on vendor. How do I create inspection lot based on sub parties automatically? Please help me.

Regards

Ramesh

[former_member42743 · Accepted solution]

This is a perfect scenario for the MPN process.  In the MPN process you create a special material master, (HERS material type) that gets linked to your internal material number.  It also links a manufacturer's number to that material as well.

When the order is placed, you can enter the internal material number.  The system will force you to then enter the manufacturer's material to order. (i.e you order the material through one vendor, but the vendor can source that material from multiple vendors).

When the material comes in, it will now have the manufacturer's number associated with it.  You can now create inspection plans and assign them based on the manufacturer's number and material number.  Not the vendor number.

There is a fair amount of material on the internet and in the SAP help files on this process.

This is all standard SAP and requires no development.  Just some minor configuration and the creation of the master data.

Craig

[busyaban7]

Hi Ramesh,

Rahul and Anand has put forward some important questions before you decide anything.

If at all it's required I can propose some crude custom logic for you to explore further -

a) Create 18 different inspection plans with different quality specifications to capture results. Link your material & vendor with it. You can create GrC's as well, but you should maintain at least 18 different combinations.

b) Create 18 different inspection types of origin "01" (Ex: 0101, 0102, ..or V01, V02...) and assign them to the inspection lot origin "01".

c) Create a Z table where you maintain the Sub-Vendor names/codes Vs Inspection types created above and Inspection plan & group counter.

d) While doing GR for the same PO, there should be an unique identifier / item Text field always populated, to uniquely identify which sub-party has send this material for the main vendor. This value should be added to the above Z-table to create the link. In case if this is blank then the Z-table search should not happen.

e) Now your GR User Exit understands based on the above input field in MIGO & Z-table combination, which inspection type should be selected, and you can get a inspection lot, per sub-vendor.

f) In case if you also need to see the stocks against each Sub-vendor, you can create 18 new storage locations (Ex ZV01, Zv02, ...) and extend the same in the above Z-table. Now while the stock is posted, it will consider all the allowed combinations, and stock may be posted accordingly.

Further inputs for your analysis:

i) You can reconcile for any particular inspection types, how are the results going on.

ii) Uniquely manage each inspection plan and later you have the flexibility to maintain these inspection plans.

iii) You can develop unique quality reports based on sub-vendors.

iv) Client can send these quality analysis to the main vendor on periodic basis, for it to take necessary actions on it's sub-vendors.

Thanks,

Arijit

[anand_rao3]

I doubt if you can map this unless there are separate POs for each of the sub vendors. Are you creating only one PO against main vendor? How do you account the stocks from MM perceptive?

You can however explore manual inspection lot creation as a work around for this.

Anand

Text added - Could you identify sub vendor wise stocks after its GR in MM module?

Message was edited by: Anand Rao

[Former Member]

Hi Ramesh,

Do you need to inspect different characteristics for different sub-parties or same characteristics?

In other words, do you need the name of sub party just for information purpose or do you carry out different inspections for different sub parties?

Best Regards,

Rahul

[Former Member]

Dear Ragul,

Each party parameters specification are different and we have to develop quality report based on Sub-parties only.

Regards

Ramesh

[Former Member]

Hi Ramesh,

You can try flexible specifications in this case.

A small extract of SAP documentation regarding Flexible Specifications is as follows:

"

From SAP R/3 Enterprise PLM Extension 1.10 (EA-APPL 110), the new flexible inspection

specifications function will be available in Quality Management.

This function is generally used when performing stability studies. However, it can also be used for

inspection lots in other processes. To use it in other processes, you must either perform a

customer-specific implementation of the corresponding Business Add-In or use customer functions.

Flexible inspection specifications allow you to make changes to inspection specifications during

inspection lot creation and within results recording. This is made possible by:

o Flexible specification selection

o Flexible specification changing

This function is especially useful in cases where inspections cannot be planned completely in advance,

for example:

o Inspections as a service

o Inspections of complaints

o Inspections for stability studies

A universal plan contains a wide variety of inspection specifications and all of the inspection

1. characteristics. This universal plan is assigned during inspection lot creation. The flexible inspection

specifications function then allows you to select the characteristics and specifications that are actually

relevant to the particular inspection.

After specification selection (selection of material specification/task list) during inspection lot creation,

the system displays a list of all characteristic specifications that have already been read.

From this list you can choose the characteristics that are relevant for the current inspection. These

characteristics are then copied to the inspection lot. In addition, you can change the following

specifications:

o Operation short text

o Characteristic short text

o All limit pairs (lower/upper tolerance limit, tolerance limit pair 1 and 2, plausibility limits)

o Target value

o Decimal places

o Inspection method

o Info. fields for characteristic

o Sampling procedure

o Selected set

o Control indicator (required characteristic/optional characteristic)

If not all characteristics in the template (universal plan) were copied, or if the specifications of the

characteristics were changed, a corresponding system status ("FLEX") will be set in the inspection lot.

If errors occur when you are selecting characteristics or changing specifications, these errors will be

output in an error log.

You must determine when the flexible inspection specifications function can be used during the

implementation process.

For example, in stability studies the flexible inspection specification function can only be used for

manual inspection lots with inspection lot origin 16 (inspection lot for initial test or manual inspection lot

for storage condition).

Apart from the inspection lot origin, other information from the inspection lot is also available. This

information may or may not trigger the opening of a window for the changing of specifications.

You can, for example, use the inspection setup in the material master to plan a manual sample

1. calculation. During inspection lot creation, the system checks whether or not the relevant indicator is set.

If manual sample determination is allowed, the flexible inspection specifications function is called,

otherwise it is not called. This process can be restricted to specific inspection lot origins.

The flexible inspection specifications function can also be used in to change inspection specifications in

results recording.

Using a customer function, you can implement the call of the screen mentioned above with inspection

specifications using a pushbutton.

All characteristics for which no results have been recorded, which have not yet been completed, and

which are not in skip status are then displayed on this screen. .

For the listed characteristics, you can change the following:

o Characteristic short text

o All limit pairs (lower/upper tolerance, tolerance limit pair 1 and 2, plausability limits)

o Target value

o Decimal places

o Inspection method

o Info. fields for characteristic

o Selected set

"

This is just a suggestion. You can go through the details and decide.

BTW, I too have not implemented Flexible Specifications yet.

Best Regards,

Rahul

[Former Member]

Hi Ramesh,

Here is a crude option if you do not want to go for flexible specifications.

Create a master inspection plan with operations for all the sub vendors (18 operations in this case).

The first MIC for these operations can be confirmation of the sub-vendor name. For example, if the sub-vendor name is XYZ then the first MIC description can be 'Vendor XYZ' in the operation for XYZ sub-vendor with catalog values as yes and no.

Then you can add all other characteristics required to be measured for this sub-vendor. Make sure that these characteristics are enabled only after the first characteristic is accepted.

Likewise create other operations.

While doing results recording user will record results only in the operation of the required sub-vendor. Note that he will have to reject the first characteristic of all the remaining operations.

This is just a crude solution. You can refine it as per your requirement.

Best Regards,

Rahul