Overview of Quality Management

The Quality Management component (QM) is part of the integrated R/3 System.  With the functions of the Quality Management (QM) module, you can implement the most important elements of a QM system, as specified in ISO 9000. 

You use the QM component functions for the following quality management work:

Quality planning

• Basic data for Quality Management 
• Inspection planning 

• Quality inspection 
• Quality certificates 

• Quality notifications 
• QM information system 

In addition, it controls the creation of quality certificates and manages problems with the help of quality notifications.

Features and Benefits of SAP QM

The QM application component fulfills the following tasks:

Materials Management

• Manages quality information for materials, vendors and manufacturers
• Releases vendors and manufacturers; Monitors their QM systems
• Manages the release status of delivery relationships, for example model or series deliveries
• Evaluates vendors on the basis of quality using quality scores from audits, goods receipt inspections, and problem notifications
• Dispatches quality documents (quality agreements, technical delivery terms) when requests for quotations and purchase orders are received
• Requests quality certificates and monitors their receipt 
• Triggers source inspections to be carried out at the vendor’s premises before the vendor is due to make a delivery
• Triggers inspections for goods movements, for example, goods receipt
• Blocks payments until inspection lots are accepted
• Manages the inventory of goods during the inspection and takes the goods being inspected into account for materials planning purposes
• Transfers inspection results to batch characteristic values
• Carries out batch determination using characteristic values from quality inspections
• Monitors the shelf-life of batches and the deadline for recurring inspections
• Manages problems using quality notifications and processes complaints against the vendor

• Integrates inspection planning and work scheduling
• Handles inspection characteristics and setup characteristics for operations
• Manages quality inspections for manufacturing orders
• Handles in-process inspections during production at freely defined inspection points
• Triggers final inspection upon goods receipt from production
• Manages partial lots of a material during production that differ in quality and assigns partial lots to batches
• Confirms quality and quantity information for manufacturing orders
• Monitors production quality with the help of control charts and determines process capability scores
• Manages problems in production using quality notifications and by processing corrective tasks

• Manages customer-related quality information
• Triggers an inspection at shipping when the delivery is created
• Creates quality certificates with the delivery
• Manages problems in sales & distribution with the help of quality notifications and by processing customer complaints

• Settles appraisal and nonconformity costs