Lesson 5 of 5
Preparing plan-to-produce sign-off
10 min
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Sign-off is a decision by accountable people that the process is fit to run the business, with known and accepted risks. For Contoso the plant manager signs as plan-to-produce process owner, Dan signs for the costing steps, and the quality lead signs for the inspection steps. Priya prepares the package and chairs the review; she does not sign for the business.
What goes in the package
| Section | Content | Contoso example |
|---|---|---|
| Scope and coverage | Scenarios traced to scope items and variants; out-of-scope list with reasons | BJ5, BEI and BJN steps plus PTP-01 to PTP-09; repetitive manufacturing out of scope (not used) |
| Results | Planned, run, passed, failed, blocked, by risk | 46 planned, 46 run, 43 passed, 3 failed and retested |
| Evidence index | Where each test's document chain lives | Test records in SAP Cloud ALM with linked evidence |
| Open defects | Severity, workaround, owner, target date | No Critical or High; 2 Medium, 4 Low |
| Accepted risks | Risk, mitigation, owner, expiry | Rework orders need a manual component until release 2 |
| Reconciliations | Stock and values after the cycle | Finished and component stock value to G/L; order balances zero after settlement |
| Signatures | Name, role, date, conditions | Plant manager, Dan, quality lead |
Contents of the plan-to-produce sign-off package. Counts are illustrative.
Exit criteria
Agree exit criteria at the start of the test phase, not the week before the review. Contoso's plan-to-produce criteria: every High-risk scenario executed and passed with evidence; no open Critical or High defects without an accepted, documented workaround; planning results for the October cycle match the expected tables; stock values and order balances reconciled after period-end; and every accepted risk with an owner and expiry. If a criterion is missed, the package says so plainly and the signatories decide.
- Week −3Exit criteria checkPriya reports status against each criterion
- Week −2Retests and reconciliationFixed defects retested; Dan reconciles values
- Week −1Package sentSignatories receive it two days before the review
- ReviewDecisionSign, sign with conditions, or not yet
- AfterArchiveSigned package kept with the evidence for audit and hypercare
Recording accepted risks
An accepted risk is a known gap the business chooses to live with for a limited time. Write it so someone who was not in the room understands it a year later: what the gap is, what could go wrong, how it is mitigated, who owns it and when it expires. "Rework is a bit manual" is not an accepted risk. "Rework orders for CMC-ALT-100 need the replacement rotor added manually; risk of missing component cost on about 15 orders a month; mitigation: daily check by the supervisor; owner: production supervisor; expires with release 2 in Q1" is.
What would you do?
The day before the review, a High defect is still open: settlement in plant 1720 Chicago posts variances to the wrong account. A fix is in test and should be ready in five days. Detroit is clean. What should Priya recommend?
Run the review as a decision meeting, not a presentation of slides. Priya walks through the exit criteria one by one, shows the open defects and accepted risks, and asks each signatory for a decision on their part: sign, sign with conditions, or not yet. Conditions are written down with an owner and a date before the meeting closes. Keep the signed package with the test evidence. Luis uses it for the cutover go/no-go, the hypercare team uses the accepted risks as a watch list, and the next release's regression tests start from the same scenario list.
After go-live, plan-to-produce sign-off becomes a release sign-off. For every SAP S/4HANA feature pack or significant change, Priya's team reruns the High-risk scenarios (PTP-01 to PTP-04 at least) in CMR, Contoso's pre-production system, compares MRP proposals and order values with the expected results kept from the conversion, and the plant manager signs a short release decision in SAP Cloud ALM.
- Business owners sign; the test lead prepares and presents.
- The package holds coverage, results, evidence, defects, reconciliations and accepted risks.
- Exit criteria are agreed at the start and reported plainly at the end.
- Accepted risks have a description, mitigation, owner and expiry.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Who signs the costing part of Contoso's plan-to-produce sign-off?
2. When should exit criteria be agreed?
3. Which accepted-risk entry is usable?
4. A High defect is open in one plant only, with a fix in test. What is a sound recommendation?