Linking MIC to Class Characteristic

Introduction: This documents describes the step by step procedure to maintain the link between Master inspection characteristic and Class characteristic.

I have often seen people struggling with the linkage of a MIC to the characteristics of batch classification. This generally is required where an organisation or system need the final values of Batch to come from Quality department. e.g. In a manufacturing industry, finished product is generally inspected by Quality department and thus final gradation is approved.

There are few basic steps which are required to set up the linking of MIC to CC.

MICs can categorized into Qualitative and Quantitative. It is similar to Data type of a characteristic i.e Numeric and Character formats.

I would specifically emphasis on Qualitative part or Character format since most project counter this part later on due to lack of co-ordination or something else among PP and QM guys.

Following abbreviations are used, Qualitative= QL, Quantitative= QT, Character format= CH, Numeric format= NUM

• Linking a Qualitative MIC to CHAR format Characteristic

In QM module, when a QL MIC is created, a catalog need to be assigned to record the values during result recording. This is different from assigning predefined values to CH type characteristic. Lets say  a catalog QUADEC is prepared. Now this need to be assigned to Both QL MIC and CH Characteristic to maintain the link.

1. Assigning Catalog to CH ‘Decision’. Use TCode CT04 .

1.1 Initial page look like this,

1.2.  Now clicking on tab ‘Values’ would take you to next screen. Here you click on ‘Other value check’ to see a window. You choose Catalog char. I would like to mention here that it is frequently seen that predefined values are assigned directly to CH characteristic, which later creates problem while maintaining the link.

1.3. As soon as you choose, system would ask you to assign plant and applicable catalog. Enter the plant and use F4 to see the available list of catalogs. In this case, I have taken ‘QUADEC’ for CH DECISION

1.4. After entering the plant and catalog, click on ‘Save’ to create the CH characteristic with required value

Now the requirement is that whenever QM person enters the Quality decision during result recording, that should update the batch characteristic DECISION. To achieve this, QL MIC QQUALITY would be created.

2. Use Tcode QS21 and enter values as shown below and press enter. DECISION is mentioned in the Class characteristic tab since this would be linked with MIC QQUALITY.

2.1 Once you press enter, message would be displayed indicating the basic behavior and attributes have been adopted from the characteristics. This can basically be defined as that if the linking class characteristic is of CHAR type, MIC cannot be created with Quantitative format but with Qualitative format only.

Enter again to see the new window.

2.2. In this screen, default values and control indicators have adopted from CH DECISION (refer highlights). MIC has automatically been assigned as Qualitative and indicator for catalog is also set.

2.3 Click on Control indicators to complete the desired settings. Also see that indicator for ‘Charac. attributes’ is grayed out and thus cannot be changed.

2.4 Maintain other control indicators and system will take you initial screen (screen no 2.2). Here, if you click on tab ‘Catalog’ you would see that QUADEC is

already assigned to QL MIC QQUALITY (refer highlight)

2.5 Save the MIC to get confirmation.

Now on wards, whenever QM personal enter the values for QQUALITY and close the inspection lot, same would be updated in the characteristic DECISION in batch classification.

• Linking a Quantitative MIC to NUM format Characteristic

To link the QT MIC to NUM Characteristic, procedure is similar to what I have mentioned above. Only difference is that while maintaining the control indicators in QS21, system would not let you to change following control indicators,

• Lower specification limit
• Upper specification limit
• Confirm values
• Measurement unit

• Maintaining the link after the creation of MIC & Characteristic separately

If the MIC and Characteristic are already created in the system and link was not maintained initially, same can be done in following way.

Go to QS23 to change the MIC, and enter the Characteristic name in the Class characteristic tab.

Additional Features,

1. You can only have a 1:1 relationship between a class characteristic and a master inspection characteristic (that is, you cannot reference the same class characteristic in several master inspection characteristics)
2. Control indicators for MIC are automatically set in accordance with that of class characteristic.
3. If a CH Characteristic with predefined values (without catalog) has been used once, same cannot be linked to QL MIC in any way (none that I’m aware of).
4. Automatic batch valuation occurs on the basis of inspection results once the inspection is completed.
5. Transfer of inspection results would take place only when the inspection is being carried out with respect to material specification or task lists.
6. Batch class is maintained in the material master Classification view.

Configuration setting for Transferring the results to the Batch:

In config settings, QCC0

Basic settings>> Maintain settings at Plant level>> InsLot completion>>  ‘Batch valuation without mat spec’  must be ticked on (if the task list is used for result recording). Else you need to maintain the material specification through QS61.

This is required for transferring inspection results to batch classification

Kind regards,

Nitin Jinagal

PS:  Contribution towards any correction/ modification/addition related to document is welcomed and well appreciated.