QP02 — Change Inspection Plan

QP02 opens an existing inspection plan for editing: header data, operations, the quality characteristics attached to each operation, sampling procedures, and the materials that use the plan. The structural fact that causes most confusion is that an inspection plan is keyed by a plan group and group counter, completely independent of material number. A material is linked to a plan through a separate assignment, meaning several materials, or several plants, can share one plan, and one material can in principle have several plan counters valid for different periods or usages. Editing the wrong counter, or editing a plan that is not the one actually assigned to the material in that plant, is a routine source of wasted time. If change number management or engineering change management is active for the task list type, changes may generate a new version instead of overwriting the current one.

QP02 is reached after a plan already exists via QP01, whenever an existing inspection needs adjustment: a tolerance changes, a characteristic is added or removed, a sampling procedure is swapped, a new material needs to be added to an existing plan group, or an operation's work center changes. It sits in the master-data layer of quality inspection, upstream of inspection lot creation (QA01/QA02) and results recording (QE01/QE51n). A consultant reaches for QP02 rather than a Fiori app when doing detailed characteristic-level edits, long text maintenance, or bulk operation changes, since classic inspection plan maintenance in many landscapes is still handled through the SAP GUI transaction rather than a browser app.

To confirm which plan a material actually uses, check MAPL filtered on material number and plant, and read off the plan group and group counter it points to. Then check PLKO for that group/counter to see status and validity dates. To confirm a specific characteristic is really on the plan, check PLMK filtered on the plan group, counter, and operation, and compare the characteristic number and sampling procedure fields against what QP02 displays on screen, since a discrepancy usually means the wrong counter was edited or the change was saved to a new version.

Inspection plan maintenance itself is essentially unchanged between ECC and S/4HANA; QP01, QP02 and QP03 remain the primary transactions and the underlying data model (plan group, counter, material assignment) carries over directly. Some Fiori apps exist around master inspection characteristics and quality planning overviews, but detailed plan and characteristic editing is still routinely done through the classic transaction in most implementations, so no forced migration to a browser app applies here.

This is a functional QM problem in almost every case: inspection plan structure, characteristic assignment, sampling procedures and status handling are all configuration and master-data decisions owned by the QM consultant. ABAP involvement is rare and limited to custom characteristic determination logic or user exits around plan selection. A clean handover states the plan group/counter, the material/plant affected, the exact characteristic or operation in question, and whether the issue is about a new lot or an already-open one.

QP01 is the creation counterpart and worth reviewing to understand how the plan group and counter get assigned in the first place. QP03 is the display-only equivalent, useful for confirming a plan's current state without risking an accidental change. QS23 covers the master inspection characteristic that a plan-level characteristic may be inheriting from, which explains why some edits belong at the master rather than the plan. QA01 shows how the plan gets consumed at inspection lot creation, which is the transaction that will reveal whether a QP02 change actually took effect.