QM Certificate validation

[Former Member]

Hello Folks,

I got a question regarding the QM certifications.

Is there a way to define how the validity of a certificate from a supplier can be checked when any batch of a product is being used for production consumption or sales delivery?

Can this be done in STD SAP using the Quality info record ; control key and batch derivation??

The client requirements are as follows:

1) Suppliers needs to be certified in order to be able to supply products. Customer requires these certificates to be valid when any batch is being used to produce products meant for them or being dispatched directly to them

2) Different customers have different certificate validity requirements for the same products.

Regards

D

[former_member198406]

Hi Devraj,

There are no standard way to achieve the requirement. But, you can use batch characteristics and Batch Derivation with little ABAP code to cater this requirement.

Maintain the certificate validity and other parameters in batch characteristics and with user exits in batch derivation you can fulfill the customer needs.

If you can share more details about the "2) Different customers have different certificate validity requirements for the same products."  then it would be much helpful.

Regards,

Dipeshkumar Bhavsar

[Former Member]

Thanks Dipeshkumar,

What I meant was:    If Customer A and Customer B is supplied with products from Vendor X- then it is possible that 'Customer A' can ask that 'vendor X' be compliant with certificates 1; 2 & 3..whereas 'Customer B' could require one more certificate ..i.e certificate 1; 2; 3 and 4 in order to be able to supply to them.

I am trying to figure out what part of std QM certifications and QMS systems can be used to meet some of these requirements....would you have any idea whether 'Supply relationships' in QM could work?

Thank you

D

[Former Member]

Also I wanted to know whether Quality assurance agreements could be used to store and certificate documents in PDF formats etc.

Thanking you,

D

[former_member198406]

Hi Devraj,

Yes, you can use the Quality Assurance Agreement to store the certificate document. But, I would not recommend the same as the certificate belongs to a batch and the quality assurance agreement belongs to Quality Info Record. Instead, you can create a separate document type and store the same.

Regards,

Dipeshkumar Bhavsar

[former_member198406]

Dear Devraj,

I was expecting the same. But, just wanted to confirm. You can achieve this requirement using my earlier suggestion. The "Supply relationship" in QM will not be of any use with respect your requirement.

I had designed the same kind of a solution a few years back. I have used the same concept which I suggested earlier.

Regards,

Dipeshkumar Bhavsar

[Former Member]

Thanks Dipesh,

Your suggestion is what first crossed my mind..but the problem I think with that approach would be - the validity dates of the certificates would have to be at the material level (where someone would have to enter the batch characteristics @ each batch level). The business requirements here are that the certificates are valid at the vendor level for a period (much like a QMS system) and the customer needs vendor to be compliant at the time of having any products delivered to them.

I am thinking of using a document type (new one) that would hold customer; vendor as object links. And also use valid from and valid to date as class characteristics in the same document. These documents can then be maintained for each certificate type and all customers and vendors relating to this certificate can be maintained in the object links. Then I would use an ABAP program to query this document (of the document type) and check for validity. If validity runs out, then relative business transactions would be blocked. Please can you let me know whether this would be a good approach.

Many thanks.

Regards,

Devraj