WHAT IS SAP QM?

SAP QM (Quality Management) is an SAP ERP and SAP S/4 HANA module that provides all functionality required for ensuring the quality of the products and services offered by the organizations that use these ERPs.

This module can be more or less critical depending on the industry in which it is applied. For instance, in industries like Pharma or Food it is fundamental. While in others, like in mechanical processes or specific services, it can be limited to its basic functions.

When we think about the processes of quality assurance, we might imagine that they only are about tests in order to release or not the manufactured products or provided services. But, depending on the complexity of the industry and organization where we work, these processes can include many more activities.

First of all, it is necessary to configure the system and the master data in a way that automatically proposes the required tests in each part of the procurement or manufacturing process and for each material. For instance, we can plan tests in the goods receipt process, and these tests can be different depending on each raw material or component that we receive. But we can also configure tests at the end of the manufacturing process or they can be triggered ad-hoc manually.

Once these tests are planned and realized (which can go from a simple visual check to complex tests in the laboratory), their results must be entered into the system. This process will allow distinguish those materials that we can use from those that we must block, but besides that, it will be a very important information source for improving the processes and evaluating vendors.

As we can see, this module must be closely integrated with the rest of the logistics and manufacturing module. We need this integration for managing the rejected quantities or batches, for integrating the collected information in the manufacturing process, … This, increases the difficulty of implementing this module, but at the same time it add a big advantage with respect to using external tools. As the integration of these external applications with the rest of SAP modules can result in complex interfaces.