Top SAP Quality Management (QM) Interview Questions and Answers-(2024)

1 .

SAP Quality Management (QM) has been developed as a feature of SAP ERP Central Component (ECC), the main ERP product from SAP. It is designed to prevent defects, enable continuous process improvement, and establish sustained quality control programs, and continuously improve the business processes. Potential benefits for the organization include compliance with manufacturing quality regulations, lower operating costs, and improving customer satisfaction.

SAP QM integrates with other ECC components like Materials Management, Plant Maintenance, Production Planning, Sales and Distribution, Finance, Controlling and Human Resources. This integration means that SAP QM tasks can be incorporated into tasks within these other ECC components.

2 .

Explain SAP Quality Management (QM) Main Activities?

SAP QM is used primarily in quality control processes that organizations use on goods as they move through the product lifecycle, including inspecting goods as they come into a facility, when they go through production and when they are shipped out as finished goods.

SAP QM consists of tools for several interrelated activities that can be configured for organization's specific processes. Each of these tools consists of functions that are specific to that activity. These tools include :

Quality Planning (QM-PT) : which lets you set up and manage quality inspection plans that define what goods are inspected, how the inspections take place, the characteristics of the goods to be inspected and the type of equipment used to perform the inspections.

Quality Inspection (QM-IM) : which allows you to determine if a product meets the defined quality requirements and to record the results of inspections. QM-IM uses inspection specifications that are defined in Quality Planning.

Quality Certificates (QM-CA) : which allows you to certify that goods have met defined quality requirements. Customers may have different specific criteria for the quality of their goods and you can confirm Quality Certificates to take this into account. However, QM-CA can also generate general certificates that don't use such specific criteria.

Quality Notifications (QM-QN) : which lets you record problems you encounter with goods received from a vendor, when the goods are in production, or that are reported by customers. QM-QN can be configured to record, process, and manage positive information about products as well as complaints about quality.

Quality Control (QM-QC-AQC) : which allows you to manage the quality control process. For example, you can use inspection results to update quality levels; use control charts to control characteristic values; and update vendor validations for the procurement process.

Test Equipment Management (QM-IT) : which allows you to manage information about the test equipment used in quality inspections. You can maintain data for each piece of test equipment and make sure it is calibrated regularly.

3 .

What comes under Quality assurance process?

Under Quality assurance, it includes the quality inspection.

A Quality inspection involves someone from the quality department inspects an item as per defined points in inspection plan. You perform the inspection based on one or more inspection lots, where a lot is a request to inspect a specific item.

In SAP system, you can create Inspection lot either manually by a user or automatically in the system.

4 .

What are different standard reports in SAP Quality Management System?

You can create reports in QM system to check how many times a product has been identified with a defect and improvement areas that your company has to implement. There are number of reports that can be generated in QM :

Material Defects report : It can be used to check the number of times an item has been identified with a defect status.

Vendor Defect report : This report is used to show the number of defected material supplied by a vendor.

This can be checked by examining the inspection lots for goods receipts, a quality department can highlight vendors who are material which are failing in inspection.

Customer Defect report : This report is used to show the defects that were found on inspections for outbound deliveries. This helps organization to improve the quality of goods delivered and hence raise the customer satisfaction.

5 .

What are the Benefits and Advantages of the SAP (QM) Quality Management Module?

SAP Quality Management brings out valuable advantages and benefits during its use. In the following, we will list a selection of the most important benefits for your company that can be achieved by using the SAP QM module on a regular basis.

The most efficient and valuable benefits of the SAP QM module :

* Higher customer satisfaction through improved product quality

* Full integration in procurement and production provides continuous quality assurance

* Certificates of quality as part of the product documentation, confirming the quality of the products manufactured and technologies used

* Monitoring of supplier and customer returns by implementing quality control measures in SAP QM quality notifications

* Quality certificate automation, printed at the time of delivery to the customer

* Audit-Management

* Next to the permanent process monitoring, constant, flexible, and adaptable quality assurance processes are created

* With failure analysis, risk minimization, stability studies, can help reduce failures and delays

* Activation of required corrective actions by SAP QM system's automatic quality notifications

* Total control of all business processes due to smooth integration of quality management methods and measures (SAP QM) into all other business areas and processes including R&D, HR, production and logistics, sales and marketing, finance and controlling, and others

* Providing support for the company's ongoing and continuous quality assurance by integrating the quality methods of individual areas and departments into an overall corporate QM system.

6 .

What is SAP Quality Management Plan(QMP)?

A QMP is a formal plan that documents an entity management system for environmental work to be performed. The QMP is an umbrella document that describes the organization's quality system in terms of the organizational structure, functional responsibilities of management and staff, lines of authority, and required interfaces with those planning, implementing, and assessing all environmentally related activities conducted.

7 .

What is SAP Quality Level (QM-QC-AQC-LEV)?

The quality level is a data record that the system automatically updates at the time of dynamic modification (at lot creation or when the usage decision is made), by checking the conditions for an inspection stage change and, if necessary, storing a new inspection stage for the next inspection.

Use :
The information in the quality level determines which inspection stage will be used for the sample determination of the next inspection lot.

The system updates the fields in the quality level differently during dynamic modification. This depends on whether dynamic modification occurs at lot creation or when the usage decision is made. You define which of these times will apply in the dynamic modification rule .

Structure :
The following information (among other data) is contained in the quality level at the header or characteristic level:

* The number of inspections that have occurred since the last stage change.

* The number of inspections that were unsuccessful.

These counters are updated accordingly each time the quality level is updated. The system uses these counters to determine when an inspection stage change should occur. The conditions for a stage change are defined in the dynamic modification rule.

8 .

Explain Master Inspection Characteristics (MIC) in SAP QM.

Master Inspection characteristics are required to describe the inspection specifications for materials like length, width, viscosity, etc.

We create master inspection characteristics at the plant level to simplify and standardize the inspection planning activities.

It also helps to organize the master inspection characteristics in order to avoid duplicate creation of MIC.

These characteristics can be used in Routings, Master Recipe, Inspection Plan and maintenance task list. We can also create the different versions for the single MIC.

Inspection method and catalog could be attached to inspection characteristics.

There are 2 types of Master Inspection characteristics available in SAP.

* Quantitative

* Quantitative characteristics are used to record the results of the Quantitative inspection.

* Values of inspection can be directly feed to these type of characteristics while performing results recording. Characteristics specification limits like Upper Limit, Lower Limit, and central limits can be defined for each inspection characteristics at master level or while creating an inspection plan.

* Inspection Method can also be attached to inspection characteristics level.

* Qualitative

* Qualitative characteristics are used to record the results of Attribute inspection like “Ok” or “Not ok”.

* Code groups / Selected sets of Catalog type 1 can be used for recording result against Qualitative inspection characteristics. Appropriate inspection method can be attached to inspection characteristics.

9 .

What is Quality Notification?

Quality notification you can record different type of problems occurred due to poor quality of goods. Quality notifications can be created for the following internal and external problems :

* Defect Analysis

* Customer Complaint

* Complaint against vendor

10 .

How to get inspection lot certificate

First, create a certificate profile using QC01 T code & then assign it to the material using T code QC15.

After this, you can check certificate analysis creation by using the following transaction codes.

A. T code QC20 – From delivery

B. T code QC21 – From Inspection lot

C. T code QC22 – From Batch.

11 .

How many types of testings are there in QM implementation? Give a brief explanation

Mainly 3 types :

* QM in procurement-Inwards goods receipt inspection.

* QM in production- During operations and prdn ordr goods receipt.

* QM in sales- Inspection for a delivery

12 .

How many Quality Principles are there? Could you name few?

* Customer Focus

* Leadership

* Process Approach

* Involvement of People

* System Approach to Management

* Continual Improvement

* Factual approach to decision making

* Mutually beneficial supplier relationship

13 .

What is difference between vendor defect report and customer defect report?

Vendor Defect report :

This report is used to show the number of defected material supplied by a vendor.

This can be checked by examining the inspection lots for goods receipts, a quality department can highlight vendors who are material which are failing in inspection.

Customer Defect report :

This report is used to show the defects that were found on inspections for outbound deliveries. This helps organization to improve the quality of goods delivered and hence raise the customer satisfaction.

14 .

What are different search criteria you can use in Quality Management system?

* Material

* Inspection lot creation date

* Batch

* Vendor

* Inspection dates

* Plant

* Inspection type

15 .

What is ISO standards for Quality Management?

The ISO 9000 family of quality management systems standards is designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders while meeting statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product.

16 .

Name few common tables and their description in QM system?

* QPAM Inspection catalog selected sets

* QPMK Inspection characteristic master

* QPMT Master Inspection Characteristics Texts

* QPMZ Master Inspection charactertics MIC

* QMAT Inspection type for material parameters

* QMHU shows QM link in Inspection lot and handling unit Item

* QMTB Inspection method master record

* QMTT Inspection Method texts

* QPAC Inspection catalog codes

17 .

What is the difference between Inspection Method and Inspection Plan?

Inspection plan in SAP is normally a task list based high level object describing details about what characteristics must be tested in order to ensure the quality of the product.

Inspection method is detailed info describing how to carry out inspection. It is a separate object and can be assigned to either characteristic or in the plan directly.

18 .

What are different valuation parameters, and how sampling plan depend on valuation parameter?

You can create sampling schemes :

* For attributive inspections

* For variable inspections based on the s-method

* Without valuation parameters, if you use the sampling scheme in a sample-drawing procedure or in a sampling procedure that calls for a sample calculation without a task list

Depending on the valuation parameter used, the sampling plan consists of −

* The sample size, acceptance number, and rejection number for attributive inspections.

* The sample size and K-factor for variable inspections.

* The sample size if without valuation parameters was specified.

19 .

How do you manage defects in the material supplied by vendor/supplier?

Quality info records are used to manage the supplier relation in an organization. When there is continuous defect in the material supplied by a vendor, you can use quality info records to block a vendor.

When you create a purchase order, SAP system performs a check to find if a Quality info record is required and is available for combination of material and vendor.

Quality information record has to be maintained when you use the source inspection functionality that means a material has to undergo an inspection prior to the material reaches the plant for Goods Receipt.

You can set under Quality Info record that inspection is required when it is procured from vendor A and is not required if you procure from Vendor B.

20 .

What do you understand by Actual Quality Level value AQL?

Maximum fraction of nonconforming units (as a percentage) or maximum number of defects per 100 units permitted for a lot to be accepted. The AQL (Acceptable Quality Level) is the quality level that represents the upper limit of a satisfactory average quality level for an acceptance sampling inspection.