When managing supplier quality, you can collect quality data from:
Oracle Purchasing Receiving Transactions window
Oracle iSupplier Portal
Additional Oracle Quality features designed specifically for collecting supplier quality data include:
Skip lot inspections
Inspection sampling
In this release of Oracle Purchasing, you can collect quality data from Purchasing's Receiving Transactions window, where you can use Oracle Quality in one of two different ways:
Receiving Transfers and Deliveries: You can use Oracle Quality to collect quality data on items as you transfer them internally within Oracle Purchasing, or before you deliver them to their final locations. To use Oracle Quality for Receiving Transfers or Receiving Deliveries, select the Quality button on Oracle Purchasing's toolbar in the Receiving Transactions window.
Receiving Inspections: You can choose to use Oracle Quality instead of Oracle Purchasing to accept or reject item quantities in a Receiving Inspection. By using Oracle Quality in place of Oracle Purchasing, you can also collect additional quality data in your Receiving Inspection using customized collection plans. To use Oracle Quality for Receiving Inspections, you will need to first ensure that the QA:PO Inspection profile option is set to Oracle Quality; then, when you are in the Receiving Transactions window, select the Inspect button.
If you choose to use Oracle Quality in place of Oracle Purchasing to conduct your Receiving Inspections, you will be able to perform every task that is available in a Purchasing Inspection in addition to some other tasks not supported in Purchasing. Quality Inspections functionality is a superset of Purchasing Inspections functionality.
For more information on collecting quality data from the Receiving Transactions window, see:
If you use Oracle Purchasing, you can enter the number of items that were accepted or rejected items and enter information about your inspection results. You can review your inspection results on-line by receipt number, purchase order number, supplier, item, and/or transaction date range. You can also print summary and detail reports to help you analyze your suppliers' performance. Reports can be printed by buyer, supplier, and item. The receiving inspection register can be used to review your inspection results by receipt. See: Inspecting Received Items
If you use Oracle Quality for inspections, you can collect the same data as in Purchasing plus data for any other collection elements included on the collection plan. You can create charts, descriptive statistic views, and custom reports with the data collected using Quality. Similar to Purchasing Inspections, Quality Inspections allow to Accept and Reject shipments. However, using Quality enables you to trigger additional actions based upon your inspection results.
With Oracle iSupplier Portal installed, you can associate collection plans with transactions linked to your suppliers' purchase orders. Your suppliers can then access the collection plans from the iSupplier Portal web pages, and use them to enter and submit Quality results.
The supplier logs on, selects the appropriate web page, and queries the system for their purchase orders. If a collection plan has been associated with any of the purchase order shipments listed, a hypertext link titled Available is visible in the Quality Plans column. Through this link, suppliers can enter and view quality results. For more information, see: Setting Up Oracle Quality for Use with iSupplier Portal and Entering and Viewing Supplier Quality Results in iSupplier Portal.
To access iSupplier Portal , all your suppliers need is a browser, a user ID for the application, and the Internet address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). The user ID determines which application they can log on to and which menus are available. See: Registration, Oracle iSupplier Portal User's Guide.
If attachments such as instructions or other documents are available for a collection plan, suppliers can view them online or print them on a local printer.
Quality practitioners are faced with many choices regarding quality assurance procedures. A lot-by-lot inspection plan assumes that every lot received is inspected. Skip Lot inspection is a technique often utilized as an alternative to lot-by-lot inspection plan. The Skip Lot procedure enables the inspection of a set number of receipts and the skipping of inspection for another set number of receipts.
Skip lot inspection offers the following advantages:
Cost reduction
Reduced material handling
Faster material throughput
Less redundant and destructive testing
Inspect a receipt using more than one collection plan at a time
Skip Lot inspection is used when goods are received from a supplier and inspection is reduced based on a predefined Skip Lot plan. Quality managers set up a plan to define the ratio of inspected lots to skipped lots. When material is received, the receipt is evaluated to see if inspection can be skipped and the skipping status of the receipt is determined by the system. Material that does not require inspection can be put away; it does not need to move to an inspection area.
When a lot is received, there are two alternatives; it can be inspected, or moved to direct delivery. This is determined during the receiving transaction. If more than one inspection collection plan is applicable, then you can inspect the receipt using more than one collection plan at a time, treating each plan as a test performed on the receipt. Within the Receiving transaction window, a lot that needs to be inspected displays a status of Pending until the inspection is performed. The acceptance enables subsequent lots to skip inspection. For example, if the lot displays a Pending status, then until is has been inspected and dispositioned, all subsequent lots will display a Pending status, indicating a need for inspection.
For more information, see: Performing Skip Lot Inspections.
Sampling is the procedure of drawing a number of units from a lot at random, and inspecting those units. The size of the samples to be inspected is first determined, and lots' pass or fail statuses are determined by their sample inspections. The inspection results of the entire lot are based on the results of the sample. The number of units selected is in proportion to the size of the lot, identified by a specified, rational criterion.
Sampling enables lot-by-lot inspection, as opposed to unit-by-unit inspection. This decreases costs, handling damage, and inspection errors.
Oracle sampling complies with industry accepted sampling standards, including MTL-STD-105E (Military Standards set by the Department of Defense), and its civilian counter part, ANSI/ASQC, c=0, and ISO 9000 series. They provide the conceptual guidelines for sampling procedures. ANSI/ASQC standard sampling plans are classified as three types: single sampling, double sampling, and multiple sampling. The single sampling plans are further divided into single sampling plans for normal inspection, single sampling plans for reduced inspection, and single sampling plans for tightened inspection.
Note: The current implementation of sampling does not support double and multiple samples.
For more information, see: Performing Inspection Sampling.