Lesson 4 of 6
Defect assessment by shipping and receiving impact
10 min
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Warehouse defects need a severity scale that speaks the warehouse's language. "High priority" means little to Marcus; "trucks leave late" means everything. Contoso rates warehouse defects by their effect on shipping and receiving, on stock accuracy and on finance, and decides must-fix items with that scale. This lesson builds it and applies it to real examples.
A severity scale for the warehouse
| Severity | Definition for warehouse 1710 | Example | Go-live rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Critical | Cannot receive or ship, or stock and books diverge without detection | Goods issue fails for all deliveries; RF logon impossible | Must fix; blocks sign-off |
| 2 High | Shipments or receipts delayed or wrong for a group of orders, no acceptable workaround | Wave release misses its threshold; partial pick loses backorder | Must fix, or a tested workaround accepted by Marcus and Maria |
| 3 Medium | Extra effort or delay with a workable workaround | Label reprint needs a supervisor | Fix after go-live with a date |
| 4 Low | Cosmetic or minor inconvenience | RF screen text truncated | Backlog |
Contoso's warehouse severity scale. Wording is the project's.
Rate by impact, not by symptom
The same symptom can be trivial or critical depending on what it touches. A missing exception code is low if it only affects one rare product; it is high if it means pick denials cannot be recorded and pickers confirm quantities they did not pick. Ask three questions for each defect:
- Does it stop or delay receiving or shipping?For all orders → Critical · For a group, no workaround → High · Otherwise → next
- Can stock in bins and stock in the books diverge?Yes, undetected → Critical · Yes, detected by daily reconciliation → High · No → next
- Is there a workaround the floor can run at peak volume?No → High · Yes, with extra effort → Medium · Trivial → Low
The middle question is the one testers forget. A defect that silently lets EWM stock and inventory management stock drift apart may not stop a single truck, but it surfaces months later as a count difference nobody can explain, or as a restatement in finance. Dan, the finance process owner, must be in the room when such defects are rated.
Workarounds have to be tested
A workaround is only real if it has been run at volume by the people who will use it. "The supervisor can confirm it in the monitor" sounds fine for one task and collapses at 300 deliveries. For every severity 2 defect accepted with a workaround, Contoso records the workaround steps, who performs them, how they are trained, how long the workaround may be used, and the evidence that it was executed successfully in testing.
Managing defects in SAP Cloud ALM
Defects are raised from the failed test step in SAP Cloud ALM, which keeps the link to the test case, the process and any requirement. Contoso adds a custom field or tag for warehouse impact (receiving, shipping, stock accuracy, finance) so that Priya can report open defects by impact rather than only by priority. Retests run against the same test case, so the history shows the defect, the fix and the passed retest in one place.
What would you do?
A defect: after a goods issue reversal, the delivery shows "not goods-issued" but the stock does not return to the staging bin in EWM. Reversals happen about twice a month. How should it be rated?
| Defect | Symptom | Rated | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reversal leaves stock off the staging bin | Delivery not goods-issued; EWM stock missing | 2 High | Stock and books diverge, detected by the daily comparison; rare |
| HU label prints at the wrong printer | Labels at PK02 instead of PK01 | 3 Medium | Extra walking; workaround reprint; no stock effect |
| Pick denial cannot be recorded on one execution step | Pickers confirm full quantity | 1 Critical | Undetected divergence between bins and books |
| RF screen text truncated | Product description cut off | 4 Low | Cosmetic |
Four Contoso defects rated with the warehouse scale.
- Rate warehouse defects by effect on receiving and shipping, stock accuracy and finance.
- Undetected divergence between EWM and inventory management is critical; detected but recurring divergence is high.
- Accept a workaround only if it was tested at volume by the people who will run it.
- Report defects by warehouse impact in SAP Cloud ALM, linked to tests and processes.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Goods issue fails for all deliveries. Which severity fits?
2. Why must Dan help rate some warehouse defects?
3. When is a workaround acceptable for a high-severity defect?
4. What does raising a defect from the failed step in SAP Cloud ALM preserve?