Use of Master Inspection characteristics in inspection plan

[former_member262808]

Dear QM gurus,

I have a query that why we create multiple MIC's in QM?

If we create two MIC's one for qualitative & another for quantitative we can use the same MIC in multiple inspection plans by changing its description and values so why should we create multiple MIC's? What is the use? What will be the drawback?

Request you all QM gurus to please guide me.

Thanks in advance,

Shiv

[former_member42743]

This all depends on your design.  However, one of the biggest impacts is if you require batch management for your products.  Another factor is the size, and for lack of a better word I'll make one up...your "Globalness".

There is no hard and fast rule to the use of MIC's.  It's why every implementation is different.

If you use batch management, then you probably need MIC's.  One of the benefits of batch managment is that each batch of material can have it's own values.  In some industries this isn't important.  In other industries every material is batch managed.  If batch managed, many places want batch charactersitcs.  These characteristics can be for many uses, but one is to carry specific batch measurements or values such as ph, specific gravity, length, width.. just about anything.  But since measurements need to transfer from inspection lots to batch characteristics you need to link a MIC to a general characteristic.. And you can only have one MIC to one general.  So in terms of globalalization, if the same item is made in multple places, they SHOULD be sharing the same batch characteristics and hence the same MIC's for testing.  I did start a BLOG series on this, which I really need to find time to continue.  This is the first in the series. 

So if no MIC's, then no batch values can be populated from inspection lots.

Another reason is COA's.  COA's can use either batch charcteristics or MIC's.  But COA's are a client wide object.  In the COA, if one set of MIC's is used across all plants and sites, maintaining and updating COA's can be much easier.  If you don't generate COA's, you might not need to worry about MIC's.

A third reason is maintainance. If you are small, with say only a few hundred MIC's at any given site and only 2-3 sites it's not to bad.  If you have say 10,000 products, 5000 MIC's and you cross-manufactuer in 15-20 plants worldwide, it can be a nightmare if everyone has their own MIC's and support structures to maintain them yet you all make basically the same things.  Doing all the maintainance strictly in task lists and inspection plans can quickly become a nightmare.

Keep in mind there are clear differences between using referenced MIC's, Complete copy model MIC's and incomplete copy models in inspection plans.

Craig

[former_member193808]

Hi,

In my current project, all the 3 are applicable. We widely use Batch - MIC link on all processes and was about to comment on it when i saw this question

In addition to the above, there will be calculated characteristics, which uses other MICs plus there are lots of reporting which will use MIC codes. You cannot have the description on all reports as it's a large text field.

In some cases(say if you use GTM - Global Trade management), there will be contractual terms with vendors / customers based on QC element values. So, there will be link and based on this payment is made (payment is based on conditions, which will use the QC result). You cannot have a dummy MIC in such cases.

Thanks

Prem

[former_member42743]

Your comment also jogged another use for MIC's and that's version control.

Many regulated industries, (Pharm, food, Aerospace), requir very tight tracking of changes.  changes to MIC's can be track via MIC versions.

You really can't do that as well directly in inspection plans.  Especially in a global implementation.  You can use change management records in inspection plans but trying to go through all changes to all relevant plans at multiple sites could be a nightmare.

Another use is global statistics.  With inspection plan based characteristic's, it would be difficult in QIMS to say gather the number of rejects for a particular test for a given set of materials.  The test might be 0010 in one plan, 0050 in another, etc.. with a MIC number it doesn' t mater what position it's in.  But if ihave MIC 70000345 which is my density test and I can see for instance, all the materials (lets say steel), that failed a density test worldwide. I could than for instance maybe link these failures to the quality of iron ore used at the different plant locations.  Which might in turn give me a case for buying or not buying a particular ore from a particular vendor if the density failures resulted in significant cost in rework or scrapped product.

This is why it's sooooo important for consutlants to not just take the easiest implementation for a client.  Every design needs to be looking forward.  It's not just about what is being done today, it's also what capability do you want the system to be able to do ten years from now.  Does the business plan to grow?  Does it want to acquire other product lines?  Is it planing on adding new plants in the future to make the same products as today?  Is it movng to an outsourced operation? Is it moving operations in house?  Does it want to automate COA's or other certificates some day? Does it have plans to maybe invoice based on some characteristic like %solids or product purity or assay in the future?  Is it growng via acquistions or in-house growth, (i.e. buidlng its own new plants).  Does it need to be able to quickly add in a new facilty?

SAP is flexibile.  But you can drastically reduce it's flexibility with a bad design today based on a shortterm requirement of getting it done quickly.

Craig

[anand_rao3]

For that sake you need not create MICs also as you can still add the inspection parameters in inspection plan directly by clicking on either quantitative or qualitative checkboxes directly! I'm also trying to find out the exact reasoning behind this as in the past I also used to had the same question in my mind many times. I apply below guesses why this functionality is designed in that way.

May be other experts can add their thoughts on this so that we can understand it in a better way!

• It is not like that every MIC would have same control indicators. e.g. LENGTH would be having only Lower and Upper limits while WIDTH would have all the 3 lower, upper and target
• Similarly there could be many combinations with other control indicators like summarized, fixed scope, long term etc
• Now if you create a generic MIC say ABC for all quantitative parameters then based on the above factors you need to change the control indicators in task list every time.
• So why not to create those many MICs (as the control indicators varying combinations) which will save the time and will give a systematic depiction of the data?
• I generally follow creating one MIC for the same parameters. (Although it is not mentioned anywhere that this is the only way you should use MICs) e.g. I use only LENGTH as MIC for all sort of length parameters. I use DIAMETER as the parameter for all sort of diameters. If the values are varying I change it in the plan directly as you are saying. I never faces any big issue so far with this. But this is situational call.
• Second reason I think could be reporting like SPCs. You can have better reporting if you have distinct MICs for each parameter as these are based on MIC codes. So you would be having only 1 MIC for all sort of parameters the reports will be confusing enough.
• If at all the need arise to change the few indicators in mass for all LENGTH MICs then you can not use transactions like CWBQM as if you put the MIC code as input you will get all the parameters and not the specific one that you expected.

I do not have strong reasoning why you should create at least parameter specific MICs but I would advice that at the moment.

Anand