Mobile Inspections

This Business Scenario Map is designed for all industries. It shows how the inspection planner, the inspector, and the quality manager work together, from inspection plan creation, through on-site results recording, to the usage decision and the monitoring and benchmarking of quality. The map illustrates the benefits of mobile inspections as part of SAP PLM. The result is a streamlined process which saves time and money.

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Value Potentials	Business Benefits
Up to 30% cost reduction for inspection planning*	Efficient inspection planning using mass processing tools or cross-system transfer tools
Up to 50% reduction of hardware costs for inspectors*	Handheld device (PDA) instead of workstation

Inspection Planner

Inspector

Quality Manager

Plan inspection and scheduling

Allocate and transfer inspection lots to handheld device

Record inspection results offline

Transfer inspection results

Process worklist and allocate inspections

Notify immediately in case of exception

Make usage decision

Monitor and benchmark quality

Source:
* Discussions with Customers

The value potentials shown in this table have been reported by selected SAP customers or independent third parties as referenced herein. However, there is no guarantee that such value potentials can be realized in any particular customer-specific business processes, and SAP does not make any representations and disclaims any liability as to the appropriateness of the referenced value potentials for any specific customer situation.
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Business Benefits	Value Potentials
Direct allocation of responsibilities	Up to 20% improved user efficiency*
Personalized worklists
Ease of use
Paperless document	Up to 60% reduced appraisel costs*
Results recording without system access
Recording of data only once
Avoiding human recording errors through electronic data transfer
Speed-up product availability with faster results	Up to 50% reduced time for approval
Increased security (digital signature)
Integration with SAP SCM


Mobile Inspections Usually the inspection planner creates, maintains, and processes different task-list types to adapt quality inspections to suit the respective business processes. Therefore, different quality-related basic data, for example, dynamic modification rules, sample-drawing procedures, reference operation sets, work centers, materials, documents, test equipment, inspection characteristics, and inspection methods can be combined into an inspection plan. Powerful tools support the maintenance (for example, engineering workbench, product structure browser, application link enabling (ALE), change management (digital signatures), where-used lists, or mass data changes). When the inspection plan is set up, different kinds of inspection lots can be created manually or automatically (for example, goods receipt inspections and inspections during production). The inspector normally uses personalized worklists to get all the inspection lots he or she is responsible for. The mobile results recording function provides support when performing quality inspections in inaccessible or external locations (for example, inspections for cracks on tankers). After allocation of the inspection lots to an inspector and the transfer (download) to a handheld device, the inspector can record measured values, codes, nonconforming units, and the number of defects offline. When these inspections are completed, and the results are recorded, the data can be transferred to SAP PLM QM using a docking station. With status control, it is always possible to identify who performed which inspections, and when. If one of the inspectors has recorded a value that represents an exception, the quality manager is notified after the data has been uploaded. The inspector or quality manager finally completes the inspection lot by processing the usage decision. For this purpose, they use a special worklist. The usage decision has significant consequences (for example, goods movements and batch and vendor evaluations). Digital signatures ensure that a product can only be released by authorized users. After the usage decision has been made, the quality manager monitors the data. * = This business process is supported by Best Practices for SAP Business Suite. Best Practices for SAP Business Suite represent prepackaged business expertise in the form of methodology, documentation and reliable preconfiguration for SAP solutions. This helps you to start with a fully documented and reusable prototype for this scenario only days after you have installed the software. A prototype representing the results of a complete implementation project done up front and encapsulated in one single product that can rapidly turn into your productive solution. Best Practices for SAP Business Suite puts the power of SAP Business Suite in your hand.