A Few Measures For Ensuring Supply Chain Quality

International Journal of Production Research
Vol. 49, No. 1, 1 January 2011, 87–97

A few measures for ensuring supply chain quality
Li Zhanga, Song Wang*b, Fachao Lic, Hong Wangd, Li Wange and Wenan Tanf
a

College of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China;
b
School of Management, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian 710049, China;
c
College ofEconomics and Management, Hebei University of Science and Technology,
Shijiazhuang 050018, China; dSchool of Business and Economics, North Carolina A&T
State University, Greensboro, NC 27411, USA; eSchool of Economics and Management,
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing 100191, China;
f
Shanghai Second Polytechnic University, Shanghai 201209, China
(Final version received 25May 2010)
A major tenet of quality co-ordination and assurance in global supply chains is
to ensure continuous quality improvement through strategic planning, tactical
employment and operational tools. This study intends to provide a retrospective
synopsis on supply chain quality co-ordination, technology application, supply
chain risk management and reliability control to promote furtherexploitation on
the quality co-ordination research in supply chains. We found that supply chain
co-ordination, technology application, risk management, and reliability assurance
are a few important measures for continuous supply chain quality improvement.
Keywords: quality co-ordination; technology; risk management; reliability;
supply chain quality

1. Introduction
The operation of globalsupply chains is challenging due to the complexity in products,
diversity of suppliers’ geographical distribution, and the intertwined business relationships
and processes among suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and customers
needed for co-ordination and control (Li and Li 2000, Xu 2000, Staley and Warfield 2007,
Warfield 2007, Foster 2008). According to Li (2007), supply chainmanagement is a set of
synchronised decisions and activities utilised to efficiently integrate suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, transporters, retailers, and customers so that the right product or
service is distributed at the right quantities, to the right locations, at the right prices, in the
right condition, with the right information, and at the right time, in order to minimisesystem-wide costs while satisfying customer service level requirements.
Supply chain co-ordination issues can be classified into two categories: design-oriented
configuration issues that relate to the basic infrastructure on which the supply chain
operates, and execution-oriented co-ordination issues that relate to the actual execution of
supply chains (Swaminathan and Tayur 2003). Furthermore,supply chain co-ordination is
a management activity that is locally controlled by various independent organisations or
decision-making units in the globalisation of markets (Schneeweiss and Zimmer 2004).

*Corresponding author. Email: benqwang@126.com
ISSN 0020–7543 print/ISSN 1366–588X online
ß 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2010.508965
http://www.informaworld.com

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In this sense, the traditional supply chain quality assurance measures have to be renovated
to incorporate customer focus and be mutually beneficial to supplier relationships.
However, recent product recall events and notorious disruptions of supply chains warn
us that quality management in global supply chains has not reached the necessary level.
Thus, constructing an effectivequality co-ordination system to provide lasting and stable
quality assurance is crucial for supply chain quality management.
Research in quality management has often focused on an internal rather than external
view of quality, with the internal view focusing on process and the external view focusing
on the customer. As firms adopt the systems approach implicit in supply chain
management,...