Standardizing SAP S/4HANA Quality Management (QM) Business Processes

The client is a U.S.-based global consumer products manufacturing company with a business goal to achieve $1B in revenue by 2030. To achieve this goal, the leadership team initiated a global program to digitize, harmonize, and streamline processes to enable growth.      

During a recent SAP S/4HANA implementation project, our team faced many challenges commonly experienced with global business transformations. Legacy processes, custom transactions, reports, and non-standard processes were abundant within the S/4HANA Quality Management (QM) space, particularly around the quality certificate process for both inbound and outbound certificate printing processes. 

For the inbound quality certificate process, the team introduced standard functionality within QM in the Procurement space to track and receive quality certificates. QM control keys were put in place for items requiring a certificate, such as purchased raw materials, semi-finished products, and finished products. Primary purchasing plants were set up with certificate requirements, while secondary plants receiving materials through intercompany transfer only required a control key to be maintained, but didn’t need a certificate.   

Beyond the master data requirements in QM for Procurement, the certificate receipt requirements gave the business control over purchased materials; materials remained restricted until the certificate was acknowledged, a usage decision was made, or blocked stock was released. 

For the outgoing quality certificate process, we worked with the client to greatly reduce both the number of different quality certificate forms required and the condition records that required maintenance. The simplification in certificate profiles also eliminated the need for a custom transaction that had previously been created in the legacy system.  

Additionally, the client made a business decision to change how they managed the outgoing certificate process. Customers would now receive a certificate by default unless managed through an exception. The team used condition records to maintain the required data. By shifting to standard functionality, the client was able to utilize standard transactions to print quality certificates for deliveries while also maintaining the ability to archive the generated certificate. This eliminated the need for customizations previously used to store the certificates. 

These process changes significantly streamlined the client's processes in the S/4HANA Quality Management (QM) space, further enabling smoother future upgrades while also allowing for broader standard functionality support. The simplification of the data was achieved by the client's willingness to adapt, driven by the belief that standard functionality could fully support their business needs.  

DOWNLOAD THE CASE STUDY BELOW. 

This case study was originally published by a partner in our business ecosystem, Clarkston Consulting. Learn more about Clarkston here.