Quality Control and Inspection Management

The problem

Manufacturers are expected to prove quality, not assert it. An auditor asks which lot of raw material went into a finished batch, who inspected it, against which specification, with what recorded results, and what happened to the material that failed. In a stock SAP Business One installation those answers live in a spreadsheet on the QC supervisor's laptop, a folder of scanned inspection sheets, and a shared drive of supplier certificates.

The operational cost is just as real. Received goods post straight into a sellable warehouse before anyone has looked at them, so unverified material is available to production and to picking. In-process checks happen but are not tied to the Production Order, so a deviation found at the final stage cannot be traced back to the stage that caused it. Customers demanding a certificate of analysis get one assembled by hand from test results retyped out of a lab notebook. Non-conformances are emailed around, corrective actions are agreed verbally, and nobody can produce evidence that the action was ever verified as effective.

What ECOSIRE builds

ECOSIRE builds a per-tenant SAP Business One add-on that puts inspection between receipt and availability, between production stages, and between production and dispatch, with every result stored against the document and batch it belongs to.

Specifications and inspection plans

Quality specifications are defined per item, item group, or item-and-supplier combination and stored in User-Defined Tables surfaced through User-Defined Object forms. A specification holds its characteristics, each with a type (numeric with tolerance limits, attribute pass/fail, or a coded list), the test method, the unit of measure, and whether the characteristic is critical. Inspection plans bind specifications to a trigger point: incoming on Goods Receipt PO, in-process at a defined Production Order stage, final on the finished item, or periodic on stored stock.

Sampling plans

Each plan carries a sampling rule so inspectors are not asked to test everything. Rules support fixed quantity, percentage of the received or produced quantity, square-root style sampling, and lot-size-banded plans with accept and reject numbers per band. The add-on calculates the sample size from the actual document quantity and records the plan version that was applied, so a historic inspection can always be re-derived.

Incoming inspection and quarantine

Goods Receipt PO lines for items under an inspection plan route into a quarantine or QC-hold Warehouse rather than the free-stock location. An inspection lot is created automatically, carrying the Purchase Order, Goods Receipt PO, supplier Business Partner, item, batch and serial numbers. When the inspector records results, accepted quantity moves to the sellable warehouse through an Inventory Transfer, rejected quantity moves to a scrap or blocked location, and a partial acceptance splits correctly across both. Supplier certificates can be attached to the lot.

In-process and final inspection

Inspection lots are raised against Production Order stages, so a check performed mid-run is recorded against that specific order, item, batch and resource. Final inspection on the finished item gates the Production Order receipt: material that has not passed cannot be reported as complete into free stock. Results are visible from the Production Order itself.

Certificates of analysis

A certificate of analysis is generated from the recorded inspection results for a batch, laid out in Crystal Reports on your own template with your logo, specification limits, measured values, methods, inspector and release signature. It can be produced for a batch, for a Delivery, or per customer requirement, and is stored as an attachment so the exact document sent to the customer is retrievable years later.

Non-conformance and CAPA

A failed inspection can raise a non-conformance report holding the defect classification, severity, affected quantity, source document, disposition decision (use as is, rework, downgrade, return to supplier, scrap) and the responsible owner. Corrective and preventive actions are tracked as linked tasks with a due date, an owner, an effectiveness verification step and a closure record. Dispositions and closures can be routed through SAP Business One approval procedures so that release of suspect material always requires a named approver. Supplier-caused non-conformances roll up per Business Partner to support vendor rating conversations.

Traceability and reporting

Because lots are bound to batch and serial numbers, the add-on supports both directions of trace: from a customer complaint back through the Delivery, batch, Production Order, component batches and supplier Goods Receipt PO, and forwards from a suspect supplier lot to every finished batch and customer it reached. Crystal Reports layouts cover inspection status, first-pass yield by item and period, non-conformance and CAPA ageing, and supplier quality performance.

Who this is for

Discrete and process manufacturers running SAP Business One who need documented inspection for a customer audit or a management-system certification; food, beverage, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, chemical and building-materials producers whose customers demand certificates of analysis per batch; and contract manufacturers who must prove specification compliance to the brand owner.

Technical approach

The add-on is built against the SAP Business One Service Layer for document reads and writes, with the DI API used for objects and posting paths only exposed there. Extensibility is handled through User-Defined Fields on Items, Business Partners, Goods Receipt PO, Production Orders, Inventory Transfers and Deliveries; User-Defined Tables for specifications, plans, lots, results, non-conformances and actions; and User-Defined Objects for the maintenance forms with SAP Business One's own authorisation and approval framework applied. Certificates and QC reports are Crystal Reports layouts callable from the client. It runs on SAP Business One 10.0 on Microsoft SQL Server or SAP HANA, on-premise or cloud-hosted.

How delivery works

This is built to order, not downloaded.

1. Scoping call. We walk through your inspection points, your existing specification sheets, sampling rules, warehouse layout for quarantine and scrap, batch and serial policy, certificate template, approval requirements, and your SAP Business One version and database platform. 2. Fixed quote. You get a written scope with a fixed price and timeline before development starts. The listed price reflects a typical scope; heavy specification migration or unusual sampling standards are quoted explicitly. 3. Build. Lead time is normally two to four weeks depending on the number of inspection points, the complexity of your sampling rules, and how many certificate layouts are needed. 4. Install in test. We install into your test company database, load a representative set of your specifications, and run real receipts, production orders and failures end to end with your QC team. 5. Production install. After sign-off we install into the production company database, migrate configuration and specifications, and support the first inspection cycles live. 6. Support. A defined support window follows go-live for defect fixes and configuration changes, with full source code handed over so you are never dependent on us to keep operating.