Quality

An NCR (Non-Conformance Report) is the formal way to say “something is not the way it should be.” A part came out wrong, material arrived damaged, a customer sent something back — instead of quietly tossing it in a bin, you write it up. That record is what lets the shop spot repeat problems, count what they cost, and decide what to do with the affected parts.

Where to report one

On the NCRs page, click Report NCR. Shop-floor users can also use the Report NCR button on My Workspace without opening the Quality section at all. The Quality pages themselves only appear in the sidebar if your user group has the ERP permission.

Filling in the form

• Source Type — where the problem came from: Production (made in-house), Incoming (a supplier delivery), Customer (a complaint or return), or Internal (found in an audit, in storage, anywhere else).
• Qty Affected — how many parts or units have the problem.
• Reason — pick from your shop’s standard list; see Scrap reasons — your defect code list.
• Finished Good / Production Order / Sales Order — link the part and orders involved so the report carries its own context. All optional, but the more you link, the more useful it is.
• Cost Impact ($) — an optional estimate of what the problem cost; the Quality dashboard adds these up.
• Description — plain words: what is wrong, how you found it.

The app numbers each report automatically (NCR-00001, NCR-00002, …). A new NCR starts with status open and disposition pending — what happens next is covered in Dispositions — deciding what happens to bad parts.

Reporting a problem is only half the job — someone has to decide what happens to the affected parts. That decision is called the disposition.

On the NCRs page, click an NCR number to open its detail. The bottom of the window has the Disposition section: pick a disposition, set the status, add notes explaining the decision, and click Save Disposition.

What the dispositions mean

• pending — no decision yet. The dashboard counts these as “awaiting decision.”
• use as is — the flaw is acceptable; the parts can ship or be used anyway.
• rework — the parts can be fixed and re-inspected.
• scrap — the parts are unusable and get discarded.
• return to supplier / rtv — send defective incoming material back to the vendor (rtv is short for return-to-vendor; both mean the same thing in practice).

Status: the life of an NCR

Every NCR also carries a status: open (just reported), in review (being investigated), closed (decided and done), or cancelled (written up by mistake or no longer relevant). When you set the status to closed or cancelled, the app records the close date automatically. The filter buttons above the list — All, Open, In Review, Closed, Cancelled — let you focus on what still needs attention.

Write a short Disposition Notes entry every time: six months from now, “customer approved deviation by email 6/12” is worth far more than a bare decision.

Scrap reasons are your shop’s standard list of why things go wrong — short codes like DIM-OOT (“Dimension out of tolerance”) that everyone picks from instead of typing their own description each time. Manage the list on the Scrap Reasons page.

Each reason has a Code (short and scannable), a Name (the plain-English version), and an Active flag. Click Add Reason to create one, or the pencil to edit.

Where they get used

• The Reason dropdown when someone reports an NCR — see NCRs — reporting a quality problem.
• The Scrap Reason dropdown when a daily production log is recorded on a production order with a “Qty Scrapped” amount.

Why a fixed list matters

The Quality dashboard builds its Top Scrap Reasons chart by grouping the last 90 days of production scrap by these reasons. If everyone picks from the same short list, the chart tells you exactly where to aim improvement effort. If the list is vague or bloated, the chart turns to mush — so keep reasons specific (“Dimension out of tolerance,” “Surface finish,” “Material defect”) and few.

When a reason stops being relevant, untick Active and save rather than deleting it — inactive reasons disappear from the dropdowns but old NCRs and logs keep their history. Deleting is permanent and best saved for entries created by mistake.

The Quality dashboard pulls two different streams of information into one view, and it helps to know which is which:

• Scrap (units and reasons) comes from the daily quantities people log on production orders.
• NCRs are the formal quality reports tracked on the NCRs page.

The four cards across the top

• Open NCRs — reports with status open or in review, i.e. problems nobody has finished dealing with.
• Disposition — NCRs still awaiting a decision (disposition is pending and the report is not closed or cancelled). This is the “to-do pile” for whoever makes quality calls; see Dispositions — deciding what happens to bad parts.
• Cost Impact — the dollar estimates entered on NCRs, added up across all of them.
• Units Scrapped — total scrap from production logs over the last 30 days.

The charts

Top Scrap Reasons ranks the last 90 days of production scrap by reason — your improvement hit-list, and the reason Scrap reasons — your defect code list should stay consistent. By Disposition and By Source break the NCRs down: lots of incoming reports point at a supplier problem; lots of production reports point inward.

Recent NCRs at the bottom shows the latest reports — click any row to jump to the full NCR list. This whole section appears only if your user group has the ERP permission.

A Certificate of Conformance (CoC) is a one-page document that tells your customer, in writing, that the parts you shipped were made and inspected to their requirements. Many customers — especially in regulated industries — require one with every shipment.

Where to print it

The CoC is generated from a sales order, and you can reach it two ways:

• On a sales order’s page, use the CoC link.
• From an NCR that has a sales order linked: open the NCR detail on the NCRs page and click the CoC link next to the sales order number.

It opens in a new tab with a Print / Save as PDF button at the top.

What is on it

• Your company name and address (from Company Info) and the customer’s billing details.
• A CoC number based on the sales order number, plus the date.
• Each line item with SKU, description, quantity ordered and shipped, and the recent lot and heat numbers recorded when those parts were produced — the traceability piece customers care about most.
• A standard conformance statement and signature lines for the Quality Manager.

Because the lot and heat numbers come from production records, they only appear if they were entered when production was logged — one more reason to fill in the Heat # field on daily production logs.