The Concept Of Supply Chain Quality Management And Firm Performance

Success for many organizations depends on the firm’s ability to balance product and process changes while exceeding customer expectations for improved cost delivery and quality. In lieu of these issues firms have started to implement principles of supply chain management. Supply chain management mainly involves managing the flow of incoming materials, manufacturing operations, and downstream distribution has to be in alignment that is responsive to change in customer demands eliminating a surplus of inventory.

The supply chain management is considered as a management concept from past two decades as the customers are concerned about timely and safe delivery. The competitiveness has been increasing among the companies to deliver the products as quickly as possible to the customers all around the world. This has made the supply chain management as a vital tool for the management. This is also measured as a competitive parameter for the companies.

Supply chain management is a practice that involves the planning, supervision, and implementation of strategies and controls to direct the movement of goods and services provided to customers. The intent of this essay is to incorporate a synopsis of existing literature and to provide the reader with a general understanding of how supply chain management correlates with the organizational design and structure of modern firms. The essay comprehensively reviews the components of supply chain management and their integration with functional areas within an organization. The information presented in this essay

Supply-Chain Management is the activities that procure materials and services, and transform them into intermediate goods and final products and deliver them, through a distribution system (Heizer & Render, 2011, p. 452). DELL is a computer technology corporation that develops sells, repairs and supports, computers and computer related products. DELL has realized that supply chain is becoming more and more important for the success of today’s business world and they work accordingly to keep a competitive advantage in the market. This study will examine to what extent Dell has used supply chain management to gain and retain a competitive advantage in the computer market.

In recent years, the importance management of supply chain has been a popular topic for a discussion and debates especially among the researchers, academician and practitioners. Still, the literature on supply chain management (SCM) especially in exploring the supply chain performance measurement is very limited. This limitation is due to the affected (in return) by many aspects of the firm’s environment and operations. The lack of investigation on understanding the supply chain measurement will affect the objectives and motivations of several supply chain concept even though there is a lot of literature on number of conceptual frameworks, discussion on characteristics, hierarchy and structure of performance measurement framework.

Quality management is an integrative management philosophy aimed at the continuous improvement of performance of processes, products and services to achieve and exceed customer needs and expectations. It is a way of managing the whole business process to ensure complete customer satisfaction at every stage, internally and externally’. It transforms an organizational status to a world-class level and helps organizations achieve excellence. It has evolved as a management paradigm to improve organizational effectiveness competitiveness and

In an organization, product quality and delivery is largely dependent on the supply chain management which in turn affects the overall profitability. Therefore, supply chain quality control is essential in any organization to ensure a competitive edge in the industry and minimizing the operating costs. Firms are thus competing on the innovation front to stay upfront in meeting customer expectations. One of the industry in which advances in supply chain management have been evolving rapidly is the retail industry. Due to the changing nature of the competitiveness in the retail industry, supply chain managers must come up with expansion plans that align with multiple-channel and geographic growth.

Supply chains are an integral part of global quality and cost management initiative, because a typical company’s supply chain cost can represent more than 50% of assets and more than 80% of revenues. (Ball, 2010), in other word, the ABC, Inc should reduce the inventory of chain supply to reduce the cost. In order to do that the Board of Directors of ABC Inc. has to expresses reconsiderations for management across business functions in supply chain management. Managing the flow of raw materials, supplies as well as finished products are equally important as the management

Supply chain management has emerged as an important aspect in the modern business environment in light of the challenges businesses face because of rapidly changing customer expectations, inefficient product development processes, and increased cost of operations and human resources. This concept is increasingly considered as a new means of managing businesses and increasing performance and profitability. However, business enterprises must consider various aspects related to supply chain management during its implementation to gain performance and increase profitability. These elements include supply chain strategies and policies, suitable infrastructures or technologies, and logistics function.

“Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer.” The literature review used in this paper is focused on supply chain management and risk management though the business side of the

Over the years, the competition landscape for most companies has shifted from the highest-quality, lowest priced product or best performing product to the ability to respond to market needs quickly and get the right product at the right time to the right customer. This has in turn forced organizations to compete with their supply chain. Understanding supply chain management and putting this knowledge into practice has become a mandate to improve supply chain relationships in the entire world.

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, ever-greater demands are being placed on business on every industry, such as to provide products and services quicker, with greater added value, to the correct location, with no relevant inventory position, etc. However, customers are more sophisticated by wanting more quality, design, innovation, choice, convenience and service, and they want to spend less money, effort, time and risk. Hence, every business has to deal with highly competitive situation in order to survive; Supply Chain Management (SCM) becoming the main topic for improving efficiency and satisfy customer’s need.

Many studies have explored the topic about supply chain management and operation management. In spite of some disparities in their findings, previous researches tend to converge at a single conclusion that proper supply chain management and operation management are crucial sources of competitive advantage. Supply chain can consist of a firm, its suppliers and customers. It can also consist of intertwined supply chains that make a network of chains (Yang et al. 1339). Supply chains traditionally emphasized on enhancing transactions and delivery of products to customers. Nonetheless, changes in the business environment have shifted the traditional focus of supply chains to satisfying market needs appropriately, rapidly and in a profitable manner (Kuei et al. 890).

The supply chain management basically involves processes and activities which are involved in the planning, organising, controlling and implementing the cost effective flow of goods from the point of origin to the point of consumption. The whole process will have different players like the supplier, manufacturer, distributor, retailers and the customers themselves as the end point of consumption. The supply chain has changed drastically over the years. This days they are very global in nature. Involving various complex interactions and flow of goods, data and funds between companies which are situated in different countries and continents. Even though the companies are spread across the world the manufacturing plants generally follow a similar structure which normally comprises of the suppliers, manufacturing plants, distributors, retailers, inbound and outbound logistics providers. There were a lot of challenges which arose because of the competition which made the companies to rethink their strategies in order to get the product to the right place at the right time at the lowest cost possible. The companies should always look at improving the whole supply chain and every player in the chain should coordinate with one another if they want to increase the efficiency. The organisation should realise the strategic importance of supply chain as it is a key to building a sustainable competitive edge. (Li, Ragu-Nathan, Ragu-Nathan, & Rao, 2006).

As time goes by, the concept of quality has changed rapidly. In recent days, the concept of quality does not only about how to generate high-quality products or services, but it also should be built from the outset which means it entails a mature organisation structure, high skilled employees, good structural procedures and processes, also adequate resources (Haupt and Whiteman 2004). Hence, the concept of total quality management (TQM)