Specifications define the requirements to which the product must conform. You can define specifications for the key characteristics of the products that you produce or for the materials that you receive from suppliers.

You can attach illustrative or explanatory files to specifications, such as text, images, word processing documents, spreadsheets, video, and so on. Attachments can be used to document processing instructions as well as inspection and disposition procedures.

You can use specifications to ensure that:

• Items produced internally conform to internal requirements

• Items shipped to customers conform to customer requirements

• Items received from suppliers conform to supplier requirements

• The same item used in multiple organizations has the same specifications in all organizations

For each specification that you define, Quality allows you to specify:

• A specification type - in this example, an item specification

• An item, item category, or item category set

• A specification subtype

• A reference specification

• A group of specification elements describing the item

• Specification limits for each specification element, with up to three different specification ranges

• Attachments for electronic documents, multimedia instructions, or images

Uses of Specifications

Specifications and their specification elements make it possible to do the following:

• Prohibit the collection of data that lies outside the reasonable range of a specification element. Input that falls outside the reasonable limit range is rejected.

• Assist operators as they enter data. You can optionally display specification element specification limits as quality results are directly entered. You can choose to hide specification limits by setting the QA:Blind Entry profile option to Blind Entry On. Also, you can specify that the target value be automatically defaulted in when quality results are entered by setting the QA:Default Specification Target profile option to Yes. See: Profile Options.

• Use specification limit values to define action rules and the actions they invoke. Action rules control when and how to react to the entry of off-specification quality results. For example, you can define an action rule that invokes an action, such as sending an electronic mail message, when a quality results value is outside the upper and lower range limits of a specification element.