An industrial laboratory is an organization within an enterprise that analyzes the raw materials, semi-finished products, or products that the company produces or processes. As an element of the company's supply chain, it also provides support for other departments within the company. The costs of industrial laboratories are usually handled internally.
In contrast to industrial laboratories, commercial laboratories are an independent service agency that provides services to internal and external customers. There are many different inspection specifications and methods. Business lab services and expenses are usually billed externally. In today's global enterprise, a laboratory can be used as both a commercial laboratory and an industrial laboratory.
Supporting industrial laboratories The primary task of industrial laboratories is to ensure the quality of products produced by companies. Product quality management is included in the entire production process, such as raw material inspection, quality inspection in production, pre-production inspection, batch determination, and finally providing inspection certificates for sales. Therefore, industrial laboratory systems must support master data maintenance and inspection plans, and maintain inspection rules, inspection methods, and inspection feature values.
If a separate LIMS system is used, inspection plans and inspection rules must be maintained separately in each individual system. For an integrated system, master data can be maintained at one location, and problem management can be centrally maintained and then integrated into all processes. This allows the quality manager to use the workflow function, and immediately pass the relevant operator to perform the next job when the test result 'out of scope'.
The Role of the SAP Integrated Management Approach â—Study of stability: Validation studies provide methods for testing and evaluating products at various stages in the product life cycle. This process tests how long a product can be extended beyond a pre-defined save time in a limited environment.
â— Procurement inspection: When purchasing raw materials, it is very important for the purchasing department to select suppliers based on their purchase prices and reliability. Through the SAP quality management function, when the procurement department sends the purchase order, it also stipulates the product's technical delivery conditions and quality assurance agreement. These conditions and agreements can automatically generate inspection requests when the product is received. After the sample is extracted and the test is complete, the next step is automatically processed according to the system configuration steps, such as release to available inventory or freeze generation flow, or return. If there is a problem with the inspection result, the result will be directly notified to the logistics team and the relevant supplier's purchase order and invoice processing will be frozen. Inventory management can also process inventory items directly based on the results of a test pass, such as going to available inventory, checking quality stock, freezing inventory, or making a return shipment.
â— Production process inspection: When a production order is released, the quality management solution can automatically trigger the inspection process in the generation process. The control chart can be used for statistical process control (SPC). The inspection equipment can be associated with the inspection lot and when the inspection result is recorded, it is used to automatically record the inspection time and quantity (production quantity, waste product, rework), so that product costing can be performed. If necessary, the inspection process can also be triggered at the end of the generation process. So SAP's quality management solutions can support relevant industry regulations, such as GMP data security and multi-layered release requirements. Digital signatures can also be added to the process, such as sampling, checking the record of results, or verifying the final decision, such as whether to receive purchased items or generate batches. The results of the inspection can be recorded in the batch characteristics.
â— Sales and Distribution: At the time of sales, the system can perform batch determination processes and select the products that are suitable for them according to different customer needs. For example, when the sales order determines the batch, the product moisture content is required to be less than 2%, and the moisture content is a batch feature. Before the product is shipped and packed, it can also automatically drive the quality inspection process. If necessary, it can also generate quality certificates in various formats, such as paper, fax, PDF or XML. In short, quality data can be easily exchanged between customers, suppliers, and companies. With integration, data can be transferred directly from one system to another without manual input, reducing the error rate.
â— Instrument Calibration: Due to tight integration with the device management functions in mySAPPLM, all types of test equipment can be tracked, managed and monitored, and the inspections can be scheduled and executed for calibration.
SAP is the world's leading provider of enterprise management software and collaborative commerce solutions. More than 80% of Fortune 500 companies use SAP's business solutions.
SAP Chemical Industry Solutions: Beyond the Traditional LIMS Quality Management System
Quality Management in the Laboratory SAP's quality management covers all the functions of traditional LIMS. Particularly worth mentioning is that it supports various types of laboratory processes, including industrial laboratories and commercial laboratories, to meet the special needs of various unique laboratory processes.