The Material Review Board (MRB) feature offers the means to process non-conformant material. Non-conformant material is defined as any raw material, part, component, or product with one or more characteristics that depart from the specification, drawing, or other approved product description. Such material can be discovered or inadvertently created during the manufacturing process, inventory handling, or purchase receipt process. The system allows the user to identify non-conformant material and include important information about the non-conformance, its causes, and effects.
Essentially, MRB is a tracking tool for dispositioning non-conformant items. It includes the identification of discrepancies and the classification and disposition of parts. An MRB case may be created for in-process shop orders at the shop-order level during operations reporting from inventory parts in stock, during the receipt process of purchase orders, or on the parts waiting to be inspected. Once it is created, the MRB case allows the user to put non-conformant items through a formal review process. This may result in all items being either approved, returned to the supplier, reworked, or scrapped, or a certain quantity of items being approved and another quantity being scrapped. For example, if the total number of parts to be reviewed, is fifty, all fifty parts can be approved, scrapped, returned or reworked. Otherwise only twenty-five parts can be approved and the remaining twenty-five can be scrapped. Parts can also be returned to the supplier for re-work or for credit. If parts are to be scrapped or returned, and the parts have been reserved, new reservations can be made.