The process you will build
The supplier document check, as a quality team runs it today, and the questions that decide what each step becomes.
Everything in this certification builds one process. Read this once before Module 1, and come back to it whenever a lesson asks what a step is really for.
The process, as a human does it today
A food and beverage manufacturer orders lots of materials from different suppliers for its day to day operations.
A quality team at the manufacturer receives supplier certificates by email. These documents prove that a delivered material meets its specification.
No lot of material can be released to production before being verified. Holding up a lot blocks production, so it is in the manufacturer's interest that lots are released as fast as possible.
The submission
Each submission is an email from the supplier with the certificate attached. The quoted order at the bottom of the email names the purchase order, the supplier, the material and the delivery date; the certificate names the supplier, the standard it certifies, and its issue and expiry dates. Lesson 1.1 walks through one of each.
What verification means
To release a lot, an operator on the quality team must:
- Work out which supplier sent the document and which material it covers.
- Look up in the company ERPERPEnterprise Resource Planning: the system a company runs its core operations in, holding its suppliers, materials, orders and records. In the running example the ERP is the system of record for which supplier and material an order concerns. what certificate that material requires.
- Read the actual values off the certificate and compare them against the requirement. Some of those checks are exact, some are a matter of judgement.
- Record the outcome in the ERP.
If something fails, an operator chases the supplier and a specialist makes the final call on releasing the lot.
The team repeats these checks several hundred times a week, comparing information across documents and business systems. Suppliers do not follow templates either: documents arrive as clean PDFs, as unfocused phone photographs, and as everything in between.
One missed check can release a non conforming lot, which costs the manufacturer time and money.
The process diagram
Before you build anything on the Noxus Platform you have to understand the process and all of its steps. A diagram helps: it gives the process a structure, and it makes each step easier to transpose into an element on the Platform.
The certificate process, as it runs today
The diagram shows the manual checks from email receipt to release, including the follow-up path when a certificate is not compliant.
The questions that decide what a step becomes
Analysing each step means asking questions. Four of them settle why one box becomes a FlowFlowA defined sequence of operations, built from nodes connected in order. A Flow has named inputs and outputs, so other components can use it without knowing the steps inside. It can mix exact logic with model steps, and can call or be called by an Agent. instead of an AgentAgentA model given instructions, context and a set of tools, working towards an objective and choosing its own next step from what it finds. In Noxus, an Agent can be used in conversation, where a person asks it questions, or inside a Process, where it performs a task., a Knowledge BaseKnowledge BaseA collection of documents made available for retrieval by Agents and Flows: policies, procedures, manuals, contracts. Files are ingested and indexed, then relevant passages are retrieved in response to a question. instead of a loose file, or a model instead of a fixed rule.
- Should the same input always produce the same output? If yes, a deterministicDeterministicProducing the same output for the same input every time. A rule in code is deterministic; a model reading a document is not. The courses put exact checks in code and interpretation in models for this reason. rule. If it takes reading or interpretation, model judgement. Never let judgement do the job of a lookup.
- Must it be remembered between runs? That is state, and state lives in TablesTableStructured records in rows with typed columns, for information a Flow or Agent needs to read, filter, query or update: reference values, supplier records, dates, results. Prose belongs in a Knowledge Base; records belong in a Table..
- Is the sequence of steps known in advance? Flow against Agent.
- Who answers when it is wrong? A human stays in the loop. The Flow records the result and supporting evidence for the operator or specialist to review.
Each lesson works through these questions for the step it builds, and shows the thinking behind every decision made on the Noxus Platform.