The process you will build
The supplier document check, as a quality team runs it today, and the questions that decide what each step becomes.
The supplier document check on one page, for whenever a lesson asks what a step is for.
The submission
Each submission is an email from the supplier with the certificate attached. The quoted order at the bottom of the email names the supplier, the material and the delivery date; the certificate names the supplier, the standard it certifies, and its issue and expiry dates. Lesson 1.1 walks through one of each.
What verification means
To release a lot, an operator on the quality team must:
- Work out which supplier sent the document and which material it covers.
- Look up in the company ERPERPEnterprise Resource Planning: the system a company runs its core operations in, holding its suppliers, materials, orders and records. In the running example the ERP is the system of record for which supplier and material an order concerns. what certificate that material requires.
- Read the actual values off the certificate and compare them against the requirement. Some of those checks are exact, some are a matter of judgement.
- Record the outcome in the ERP.
If something fails, an operator chases the supplier and a specialist makes the final call on releasing the lot.
The three outcomes
Every submission ends in one of three places. Compliant: the lot is released. Not compliant: refused, with a reason the supplier can act on. Cannot tell: handed to the specialist with the evidence beside it.
The process diagram
The certificate process
From the email arriving to the result being recorded. The assessment chooses one of three outcomes, and a refusal is what goes back to the supplier.
The four questions
- Should the same input always produce the same output? If yes, a deterministicDeterministicProducing the same output for the same input every time. A rule in code is deterministic; a model reading a document is not. The courses put exact checks in code and interpretation in models for this reason. rule. If it takes reading or interpretation, model judgement. Never let judgement do the job of a lookup.
- Must it be remembered between runs? That is state, and state lives in TablesTableStructured records in rows with typed columns, for information a Flow or Agent needs to read, filter, query or update: reference values, supplier records, dates, results. Prose belongs in a Knowledge Base; records belong in a Table..
- Is the sequence of steps known in advance? Flow against Agent.
- Who answers when it is wrong? A human stays in the loop. The Flow records the result and supporting evidence for the operator or specialist to review.