What is Oracle Quality About?

Oracle Quality is integrated with the Oracle Manufacturing and Distribution applications to provide consistent quality data definition, data collection and data management across the enterprise and throughout the supply chain.

Data collected and input into Oracle Quality may come from functions such as purchasing, service, shopfloor inspection or directly from the customer, to name a few. Quality data can also be collected in a standalone direct data entry mode or may be linked to third party systems.

The Oracle Quality data collection framework comprises:

Collection Elements Specifications Collection Plans

This is about all that we need right now to get started with the consultants at OSS. A much detailed overview of Oracle Quality is available in the Quality User Guide and the Quality Implementation Guide.

Jeff’s Example to Andy: The Case of the Linear Hub

Jeff has explained the fundamental concepts in Oracle Quality using specific examples from OSS.

As Andy reads through Jeff’s notes he begins to visualize the process

OSS purchases an item called the Linear Hub from its suppliers. This component is used in manufacturing the Executive Swivel Chair. When this part arrives at the receiving bay it undergoes inspection by OSS inspectors. The dimensions that the inspectors measure are – height, diameter and finish. In Oracle Quality, these dimensions become theCollection Elements.

These collection elements need to have some measurable values within certain tolerance limits. These acceptable values are defined underSpecifications.

Finally, there needs to be a data structure to hold the collection elements and the specifications. This structure tells you which collection elements are relevant, when to collect the data and what actions to take based on data collected in specific collection elements. This is the Collection Plan.

In the case of the Linear Hub, the physical inspection occurs when the item arrives at the receiving bay. So, the collection plan for the Linear Hub should be triggered when the receiving transaction takes place. When to trigger a collection plan is a feature built into the collection plan structure itself.

With his vast experience Andy begins to see the larger picture. Oracle Quality will do more than just streamline his organization’s quality processes. It will bring those processes closer to compliance with some international quality standards, such as ISO 9000, paving the way for certification in the future.

Next: Collection Elements in Oracle Quality 

Specifications for OSS 

A Purchasing Collection Plan for Office Smart Solutions 

A Receiving Inspection Plan for an Item 

Collection Elements in Oracle Quality

Collection elements are on Dave’s mind as he takes notes from Becky Klein. Becky is the tool room specialist at Office Smart’s Naperville plant. Dave Cromwell is the Quality Lead at OSS. He is interested in listing the parameters and dimensions that are used at the Naperville plant. Becky knows all about that.

The Case of the Linear Hub

Dave and Becky are discussing the Linear Hub. This item has three main parameters that come under inspection.

Hub Height

Hub Diameter

Hub Finish

Height and Diameter have numerical values. Finish is measured in grades.

Dave sets up the first Set of Collection Elements

Dave sets up Height as shown below.

Whatever Dave enters in the Prompt field will appear in the column heading for the given element when quality results are entered. As we see above, the moment we enter the element name and tab out of the field, the same value defaults in thePrompt field. This value can be overwritten.

Dave wants the user to be aware that the data to be entered in the Hub Height column during quality results entry has to be entered in inches. Dave enters an appropriate message in the Hint field. The user will see this message at the bottom of the screen during quality data collection.

Also, because Hub Height is a Variable type element, Dave sets the Data Type to be Numeric.

Dave sets up Hub Diameter in much the same way. But for the element – Hub Finish, Dave has to enter a set of non-numeric values. This is because Hub Finish is an Attribute type element. The values he enters carry descriptions as shown below.

Dave would create elements for quality data collection for other items at OSS in a similar manner in consultation with Becky.

Specifications for OSS Items

Specifications (also referred to as a spec) help define the acceptable range of values within which an item under inspection will pass the test. Office Smart Solutions (OSS) will need to define a separate spec for each item. Their business

process so demands. However, depending on the business need one spec can be applied to more than one item.

Here, Dave creates a Spec for the Linear Hub defined as item number LH101. If specs are item-specific then it is a good practice to carry the item code or number in the Specification Name.

Specs are of three types:

Item Spec

Supplier Spec

Customer Spec

Here, Dave creates an Item Spec for LH101.

However, as the name suggests, a Supplier Spec defines acceptable range of values for collection elements relating to an item coming from a specific supplier. If Dave were to define a Supplier Spec for LH101, then he would have had to enter the Supplier code in the screen below.

Similarly, a Customer Spec defines acceptable range of values for collection elements relating to an item going to a specific customer. If Dave were to define a Customer Spec for LH101, then he would have had to enter the Customer code in the screen below.

So, what's Acceptable?

Dave defines the values given to him by Becky. For the Linear Hub LH101, the acceptable range or the Spec Limits are as follows.

Dave saves his work. The Spec is created in Draft status. In that status, a spec will not be available for use with a collection plan.

The spec can be routed through the e-signature approval process. However, if the e-signature setup is non-existent then the spec status changes to No Approval Required.

The spec is now available for use.

A Purchasing Collection Plan for Office Smart Solutions

A Collection Plan (also refereed to as a quality collection plan or simply a collection plan) brings together the Collection Elements and a Specification and ties them to create the data object that drives quality inspections.

Quality Plans in Oracle Quality tells you

what data to collect during the quality inspection

at what stage of the process this data needs to be collected

what actions to take based on the quality data collected

There are many types of quality plans. These are listed in detail in the Quality User Guide. The data structure remains the same for all the different quality plan types available in Oracle Quality. Here, we shall see one of the most widely used quality plans being created – the Receiving Inspection Plan.

Dave prefers Collection Plan Templates

Oracle Quality comes with a number of seeded collection plan templates that can be used to create user-defined collection plans. Dave decides to use these templates so as not to have to create plans from scratch.

There is another factor that weighs in favor of using the seeded collection plan templates. Let us consider the example of the Receiving Inspection plan. Oracle Quality mandates that Receiving Inspection plans must include the following collection elements:

Inspection Result Quantity

UOM Name Transaction Date

Also, these collection plan elements must be defined as Displayed, Mandatory andEnabled.

Dave knows that copying from a template ensures that all of these points are complied with while creating a plan from scratch carries the risk of something getting overlooked. Hence the templates approach.

First things First, Dave creates a Reference Collection Plan

Dave intends to use the Copy Collection Plans feature in Oracle Quality to create a user-defined plan that would serve as the master copy. He seeks out the template for the Purchasing Inspection plan and finds it.

Now, quality plans are organization-specific. So, Dave has to specify which organization the template should be copied to. This will be OSN – Office Smart Naperville, the organization Dave’s team had defined earlier here. This is shown below.

Having determined the destination organization, Dave has to decide the name of the quality plan that would be created as a copy of the template.

Dave chooses to follow a naming convention that has served him well in past implementations. The plan that is an immediate copy of the template will have underscores (_) in its name. This will differentiate it from other quality plans that will be derived from this one.

Dave names his plan as OSN_PO_INSPECTION_PLAN as shown above. The prefix denotes the inventory organization to which the plan belongs.

The Copied Collection Plan needs Fine Tuning

Dave queries for OSN_PO_INSPECTION_PLAN in the Collection Plans form to verify that it was indeed created. He finds it is there! Dave looks at the collection elements in the plan that came with the seeded template. He feels he needs to add more collection elements keeping in mind the Receiving Inspection process.

Dave adds the following collection elements to the plan:

Supplier PO Number PO Receipt Number Inspector Entered by User

These are a few of the collection elements that come pre-defined with Oracle Quality.

What Next?

Here’s what Dave is thinking. Dave knows that OSS would need a separate collection plan for each item in the OSN org. He therefore plans to make OSN_PO_INSPECTION_PLAN the Reference Plan or a Master Copy which would then be copied into individual item-specific plans.

However, some of the most important tasks that help define a collection plan are yet to be done. The individual collection plans will need to be assigned to the correct transaction. Triggers will need to be defined, Action Rules associated with specific collection elements and Specifications assigned to collection plans.

That is what Dave sets out to do in the next section.

A Receiving Inspection Plan for an Item

Dave Cromwell the Quality Lead at Office Smart Solutions (OSS) is about to create the first Receiving Inspection Plan for Office Smart Solutions (OSS). In the previous section, he had created a master copy or reference collection plan from the Template Receiving Inspection Plan. He would now use this reference or master plan.

Creating an Item Specific Plan from the Master Plan

Dave copies the Master Plan into a new plan that he prefers to call – PO INSPECTION LH101 VER 01. Dave believes that if every item is going to have its own receiving inspection plan then it makes sense to include the item number in the collection plan name. Also, by his experience Dave knows that clients almost always ask the same question – Can a collection plan have versions? The answer is – No. But, a simple workaround is to include the version number in the plan name.

Collection Elements Specific to PO INSPECTION LH101 VER 01

The item LH101 has three collection elements that need to be inspected and – three parameters that must be measured and compared to the specification when the parts are received. These are:

Hub Height Hub Diameter Hub Finish

Dave had defined these collection elements in an earlier section. Dave adds these collection elements into the Inspection Plan for LH101.

When adding collection elements into a collection plan, the Seq field determines in what order the collection element columns will appear in the Quality Results entry screen. Because, these 3 collection elements will be measured in succession, Dave ensures that they have consecutive sequence numbers of 31, 32, and 33.

When to Invoke the Collection Plan?

Oracle Quality needs to be told at what stage a collection plan should be called into action. There are two features embedded in the collection plan that help fix this “point-in-time” coordinate.

The first of these is the Quality Collection Transaction. Quality data can be collected during specific transactions in

Flow Manufacturing Purchasing TeleService Work in Process Enterprise Asset Management Advanced Service Online Mobile Supply Chain Applications Warehouse Management System Shop Floor Management Oracle Process Manufacturing and iSupplier Portal

Dave wants the system to recognize that the collection plan he is working on needs to be invoked during the receiving transaction. So from the list of seeded transactions he selects the one he needs, as shown below

Having selected the transaction, he must ensure that the Enabled checkbox is checked. If this is overlooked, then the collection plan will not be triggered during the receiving transaction.

Also, collection plans such as this one, which are linked to receiving inspection are marked as Mandatory by Oracle Quality. For Receiving Inspection Plans, theMandatory checkbox cannot be unchecked.

The second and more specific way of pointing out as to when the collection plan will be triggered is to use the very same thing – triggers!

The triggers that you can use with Oracle Quality come seeded or pre-defined. Dave wants this collection plan to be called every time the item LH101 is received. So, he defines the trigger as shown below.

An Important Point:Associating a Transaction Type to a collection plan is mandatory if you want to invoke the collection plan during a specific transactional flow or business process. But triggers are optional.

Quality data can also be entered into a collection plan in direct data entry mode. If a collection plan is created for direct data entry, then it need not be associated with any of the available transaction types.

Linking a Specification to the Receiving Inspection Plan

Dave has defined a specification for the item LH101 in an earlier section. He now specifies that the system look for this specification when the PO INSPECTION LH101 VER 01 collection plan is to be used.

 

Assigning Actions to Collection Elements

Dave knows that in Receiving Inspection plans the pivotal collection element is the one called - Inspection Result. This is a seeded collection element that has two pre-defined values – Accept and Reject. Each of these values goes into a Rule. And to each of these Rules there is an Action assigned.

The first Inspection Result value is:

The Action assigned to this Rule is:

The second Inspection Result value is:

The Action assigned to this Rule is

The seeded Actions of Accept the shipment and Reject the shipment are used by the system to ensure that the items being received (in Purchasing) are marked asAccepted or Rejected, once the inspection is completed. This demonstrates the tight integration that Oracle Quality has with Oracle Purchasing.

Dave uses this feature to create a rule wherein if the Hub Height measurement lies outside of the Specification Limits then the Inspection Result would flip toReject.

Dave applies the same rule to Hub Diameter.

So, the four possible combinations would be as follows:

Hub Height Measurement

Hub Diameter Measurement

Inspection Result Status

Outside of Spec Limits Within Spec Limits Reject

Within Spec Limits Outside of Spec Limits Reject

Outside of Spec Limits Outside of Spec Limits Reject

Within Spec Limits Within Spec Limits The user will have to manually set the status to Accept

For the collection element Hub Finish, the values Dave had defined here, need to be imported into the collection plan PO INSPECTION LH101 VER 01. To do this, Dave positions the cursor on the Hub Finish collection element and clicks on the Valuesbutton. He gets the following message.

Dave clicks on the Copy button. The values he had defined earlier for this collection element are imported into the collection element.

The benefit of doing this for an Attribute type collection element is that when the user comes to this collection element column in the Quality Results Entry screen, he will find a list of values there. He need not type in the pre-defined values.

Now, Dave is ready to present this collection plan to the Purchasing Inspection people.