Sterilization at a Vendor

Process Details

​Physical flow of goods is to pool up the proceeds of a number of production orders into one Sterile Load and send it for the last operation (sterilization) from the manufacturing plant to a vendor, who returns them to a different plant for warehousing purpose. On arrival, further inspection and waiting may be required, resulting either in acceptance, rejection, or re-processing of the sterilization operation by the vendor.

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Requirements

​Vendors are paid by the Sterile Load, which may include a varying number of production orders from time to time.

​Each order should get a charge of per unit standard cost setup for the sterilization, with the variances tracked. 

​After the Sterile Load is sent from one physical plant (manufacturing plant) and received back at another (warehouse) there is a waiting period possible during which further destructive sampling and subsequent accept/reject may happen. 
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SAP Design

​Demand will be entered at the target warehousing plant, which is setup with Production in Alternate Plant special procurement. All but the last two operations are completed in production plant after which physically goods are sent to the vendor. On receipt of sterilized load at vendor, an full confirmation is posted for the penultimate operation to charge the order with the standard per piece cost for sterilization. Subsequently final operation is confirmed - possibly  Post-Sterile Sampling (partial scrap confirmations with a reason code) and/or Final Quality Release (final confirmation of balance yield) may happen. 
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​The Purchase order to the vendor for sterilization may comprise various possible line items, and is entirely absorbed into the same cost center that is setup to charge orders included in the load with the standard price by operation confirmation on receipt of the load as mentioned above. Any under/over absorption of costs for sterilization vs charges to the orders will be analyzed periodically to revise the standard price of this activity.  

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​Enhancement

An enhancement program has been designed to provide ease of automation at 3 stages of the cycle:

1) Preselection of multiple production orders into a Sterile Load number tracked in a custom table, with possibility to modify as needed before the load is shipped to the vendor. 

​2) Creation of a cost center ​PO  per Sterile Load with  all possible charge lines (setup as a BOM to give flexibility to users) - a specific PO may contain some but not all these charges, which the user will amend accordingly. 

​3) To automate the penultimate (sterilization) operation for a load for all the production orders included in the Sterile Load to indicate the physical receipt of load back from the vendor to the target plant. 
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