• Provides Faster Reaction to Quality Control Problems
• Improves Vendor Performance
• Reduces Inventory Lead Time
• Accelerates Handling of Customer Returns
• Enhances Quality Analysis Reporting

This modules subsystem is an essential component of the DMACS Inventory Control module. The Quality Assurance module provides the capabilities necessary to process all Material Review transactions, including material inspection, material disposition, and pending inventory disposition transactions. The material review transactions are all recorded in the Inventory Audit Trail table for immediate on-line visibility, shop floor quality control, and vendor performance analysis.

Quality Assurance Setup

Items that are added to the inventory master table cannot be processed within the Inventory Control system until such time as their quality assurance status is changed from ‘not signed off’ to ‘active’. This Q/A sign-off process can optionally be implemented on a departmental basis; that is, each department must first sign-off on an item before it can be activated.

If departmental sign-off procedures are implemented, DMACS provides on-line visibility into the sign-off status of each department for a given item. The status of an item can be changed to ‘active’ when the relevant departments have supplied the basic information necessary to properly process the item through the system.

Departmental sign-off is strictly an optional capability since it obviously does not apply to all environments. In some situations, the product itself does not lend itself to a departmental sign-off process; in other environments, such a procedure is overkill simply given the nature of the business.

A variety of critical Q/A parameters are maintained for each item within the Quality Assurance module. These parameters include flags indicating whether the item is lot controlled, whether the item must be inspected before it can be received into inventory, and whether the item is a Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) that is tracked by the Emissions Forecasting module. The shelf life of each item is also defined here.

The ability to track vendor performance for a variety of user-defined criteria (i.e., price, delivery, quality, administration, etc.) is available in the Quality Assurance module based on a 100 point (i.e., percent) scale rating system. The application of vendor rating scores can be assigned to each Purchase Order line item receipt and the total score can be maintained at the vendor level.

Lot Control

The Quality Assurance module provides for the implementation of lot control tracking on a per item basis in either of two ways.

For certain environments or items, it may be desirable to invoke full traceability from the receiving dock to the shipping dock. This feature enforces use of the lot number on all inventory activity transactions and provides full visibility in the inventory audit trail.

In other environments it may only be desirable to implement traceability when shipping to customers. This is a convenient method of tracking lot/tag or serial numbers (which customer received which lot and when) and minimizes the burden of maintaining the inventory by lot number. All shipments are recorded in the inventory audit trail along with the specific lot/tag or serial numbers shipped.

Material Review

The material review capabilities available within the Quality Assurance module are optional and are primarily concerned with preventing defective material from being received into inventory. However, the Q/A module also accommodates the situation where defective material is found within inventory.

A Material Inspection transaction is available to feed back the quantity, reason code and location of rejected items on an order. The transaction is recorded in the inventory audit trail and the rejected quantity is posted to the order for disposition processing. This also prevents the receipt to stock transaction from receiving the rejected portion of the order into inventory.

The Material Disposition transaction is used to identify the disposition of rejected material. The rejects may be returned to the vendor for either credit or replacement, accepted as good pieces upon further inspection, scrapped or reworked. This transaction is also recorded in the inventory audit trail and updates the order with the results of the disposition. Any quantity accepted as good pieces will be allowed to be received into inventory.

Material already in inventory that is found to be defective is processed with the Inventory Pending Disposition transaction. This transaction is also recorded in the inventory audit trail and allows you to identify the quantity and location of the defective inventory. Furthermore, the defective quantity reduces the available inventory balance to prevent the defects from being allocated and issued.

Reason codes can be optionally assigned to each Q/A transaction as a means of providing a shorthanded notation explaining the purpose or reason for the Q/A activity. Reason codes, which can be pegged to Q/A comments and notes, are always recorded in the inventory audit trail for reference purposes.