Stopping Defects at the Source: The Business Case and Setup for Quality Alerts in Plex ERP


In modern manufacturing, catching a quality issue on the shop floor a few hours too late can mean the difference between a profitable run and thousands of dollars in scrapped material. When operators are moving fast, they need immediate, visual, and contextual warnings about part vulnerabilities.

That is where Plex ERP Quality Alerts come into play.

Below, we’ll explore the business value of leveraging this feature and provide a step-by-step guide to resolving common setup issues—including how to get visual quality alerts directly onto your operator checksheets.

The Business Case for Plex Quality Alerts

Why should manufacturing leaders care about optimizing Quality Alerts in Plex? It comes down to shifting your quality strategy from reactive firefighting to proactive prevention.

  • Drastic Scrap Reduction: By instantly notifying operators of recent rejections or live deviations, you stop a bad run before it consumes expensive raw materials.

  • Minimized Escapes and RMAs: Quality alerts act as a digital guardrail, ensuring that known part defects or process deviations don't accidentally slip through to your customers.

  • Empowered Shop Floor Operators: Instead of forcing operators to memorize quality bulletins or dig through paper binders, the exact defect history and visual aids meet them right at their workcenter.

  • Faster Cost-of-Quality (COQ) Resolution: Integrating images and deviations into the control panel ensures that temporary engineering changes are adhered to perfectly, protecting margins during product launches or trial runs.

Troubleshooting: Why One Workcenter Shows Alerts and Another Doesn't

A common headache for Plex administrators occurs when Workcenter A shows a prominent Quality Alert, but Workcenter B shows nothing—even though both have suffered a high number of recent rejections.

The Root Cause

The Plex Control Panel triggers Quality Alerts based on strict parameters: both active and inactive rejections for a specific workcenter and part within the last 3 days. If an alert is missing, it is almost always a configuration or timing issue.

The Fix: 3 Steps to Resolution

To ensure your alerts are triggering universally, verify these settings:

  1. Enable the Global Quality Alert Setting:

    • Navigate to the Control Panel module.

    • Go to the Control Panel Setting Group.

    • Locate the setting name: Quality Alert. Ensure this checkbox is checked. When active, it scans the 3-day history for active/inactive rejections.

  2. Optimize Your Rejection List Visibility:

    • It is highly advised to enable the Workcenter Show setting on your Rejections List to ensure data maps cleanly between the specific asset and the part.

  3. Understand Deviations vs. Rejections:

    • Remember that Rejections trigger historical alerts based on past failure data (the 3-day window). Deviations, on the other hand, represent planned variances from normal tolerances and are managed in the Deviations module. When approved, deviations will automatically highlight specifications in a different color on operator checksheets.

Step-by-Step: How to Add Quality Alerts with Images to the Control Panel

Text alerts are good, but visual alerts are bulletproof. If you want operators to see actual photos of acceptable vs. unacceptable defects right when their checksheet pops up, follow this configuration path:

Phase 1: The Deviation Setup

Plex allows you to tie visual Quality Alerts directly to a part specification using the Deviation Tracking screen.

  1. Create the Type: In the Deviation Type setup table, add a new type: Quality Alert.

  2. Set the Title: Add Quality Alert to the Printed Title section of the setup for this new type.

  3. Build the Alert: Go to the main Deviation screen and add your new deviation, selecting the Type as Quality Alert.

  4. Fill in the Details: Complete the required fields, including a Brief Description, Reason, and critical Effective/Expiration dates.

  5. Attach the Media: Upload your reference photos in the Images section.

  6. Link to the Part: Link the deviation to the specific Part Number and its existing Part Specification.

  7. Tie to the Checksheet: Ensure your part specification is actively tied to an operational checksheet.

The Result: When the checksheet automatically pops up for the operator in the Control Panel, a direct link to the Quality Alert and its attached images will be front and center.

Phase 2: Enabling Image Permissions

If your images are attached but still aren't rendering on the shop floor, verify that these two critical system settings are turned on:

  • Acceptable/Unacceptable Images Display

  • UAS Images Display

Conclusion

Plex ERP gives you the tools to put a digital quality inspector at every single workcenter. By aligning your Control Panel configurations, utilizing the Deviation Tracking screen, and turning on image displays, you turn raw data into a visual defense system against defects.


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