Calculated results - external system

[Donk]

Hello,

Apologies in advance if this is not the right spot to post this, but not certain where else is appropriate. We're currently evaluating some MES systems to help automate some production systems, and part of this is going to include using the standard qm-idi interfaces to send inspection lot details down to the external MES system. Everything is pretty straightforward for the most part, with the exception of calculated characteristics. I'm not certain how this works with a LIMS for example, but several of the MES providers seem to have trouble interpreting the characteristic formula as written in the plan characteristic. Is anyone aware of any good solution that might be used to translate a QM calculation (e.g., (C0030*100) - (531)) into an actionable formula for a third party system? The intent would be to have the calculations occur in the MES layer, without any RFCs back to SAP if at all possible

Regards,
John

[Craig]

Off-hand I would say that would be very dfficult. I guess the question is what would your external system consider and actionable formula?

The main problem is that the formuala refers to the characteristics position in the plan, not the characteristic itself. So what is the external system looking for? A MIC number? A test name?

My feeling is that is you are planning on using an external system, you set up the formula in the external system and just put in plain, standard MIC's in SAP.

Craig

[Donk]

Thanks Craig, good info. This is one of the areas I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around... we're sending the characteristic position in the plan (merknr)along with with everything else in the IDI structures, so was assuming there might be some workable options available. Guess it really depends on the external system. Barring anything else, we probably will have to mark the characteristics as not calculated in SAP & figure out how best to add the formulas in the external.

Thanks again,
John