Quality Management : Supplier Quality
Standards Outlook: Keeping Watch
Supply chain management is important to ensure organizations can compete in the global market. Organizations continue to focus on core competencies, resulting in greater dependence on high-quality materials and services from suppliers....
Expert Answers: December 2012
A better supplier scorecard ... Inspecting your suppliers ......
Reaching Out
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides describes life at Ford Motor Co. in the 1920s, detailing how unskilled workers tried to match the calculated pace of assembly lines and a manufacturer that made almost every part itself....
Reversing Course?
THE OUTSOURCING OF FUNCTIONS once performed by organizations’ internal departments has been increasing in quantity and scope....
The Way to Engage
To be successful in today’s competitive global economy, more and more companies rely on suppliers and expect them to be on top in the areas of quality, cost and delivery....
Handle With Care
An internal auditor walks into a drug manufacturer’s production area and sees three containers staged outside the weighing room of the formulation section. She asks the first container, “Where are you from, stranger?”...
A Simple Plan
For more than 100 years, U.S. manufacturers have advanced equipment and manufacturing technologies to constantly monitor progress and drive process improvement....
K'NEX Success
As a result of the recent lead scare, companies many have grown to trust—Fisher-Price, Mattel, J.C. Penney—found themselves on recall lists instead of in kids’ hands during the holidays. Some companies, however, were able to skirt the issue....
Using FMEA to Assess Outsourcing Risk
Although outsourcing is a growing trend among U.S. businesses, there are risks involved and not everyone benefits from such arrangements. The advantages of outsourcing must be weighed against risks and go beyond cost savings. Without a systematic...
Challenges in RFID Enabled Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management is the fastest growing application of radio frequency identification devices (RFID), but few organizations are equipped to deal with the accompanying flood of information. Most definitions of RFID emphasize the technological...
A Statistician Looks at Inventory Management
A major problem facing companies today is how to promptly deliver products to customers without tying up too much capital in the form of inventory buffers. The incorporation of statistical models into supply chain management tactics helps in sizing and...
The Importance of Building Social Capital
Maintaining the integrity of the supply chain is critical in times of economic instability. An investment in social capital among organizations within the supply chain is mutually beneficial. The affinity group provides a strategy for developing...
Managing Supplier Relationships
Effective supply chain management (SCM) can provide companies the competitive edge by adding stability and predictability to their supply stream. Manufacturers can identify vendors that provide high quality service and developing close,...
Column: Standards Outlook: Purchaser and Supplier Quality
Going beyond ISO 9001, QS-9000 and TS 16949
For quality to happen, quality control from the supplier's perspective is necessary. But evidence indicates suppliers do not always pursue the actions needed for quality improvement. Quality practitioners...
Column: Career Corner: Supply Chain Management: A New Opportunity
In a recent survey of more than 200 companies, Deloitte Consulting found that while 91% of manufacturers rank SCM as either critical or very important to their company's success, only 2% rank their supply chains as world class. This...
Column: Back to Basics: Supplier Selection and Maintenance
The extent you go to depends on the associated cost, production and risk
Las compañías en EE.UU. utilizan leyes gubernamentales y requisitos de contrato para seleccionar proveedores y controlar su funcionamiento. Para controlar los productos y servicios comprados, las compañías deben definir totalmente sus requisitos hacia los...
New Quality for the 21st Century
The worldwide marketplace demands a redefinition of quality in the relentless pursuit of improvement. The 1990s have provided six drivers of this new vitality for quality: fundamental changes in how people think about and act on the need for quality;...
Quality Management and Continuous Improvement at Campbell
HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) programs have fit well into the Campbell Soup Co. approach to quality and safety. HACCP is established in over 90% of Campbell plants, where compliance planning and implementation focus on production steps...
How to Fine-Tune Your Business Processes
Two tools for eliminating waste and managing handoffs between internal providers and customers are service-level agreements (SLAs) and internal service guarantees (ISGs). SLAs cover the delivery of support resources or services. The provider and...
Considerations for Global Supplier Quality
Assessment of international suppliers occurs in two steps: initial investigation and supplier visit. In the initial investigation, data are gathered about the company and the country. This includes background information on the company as well as...
American Statistical Association Conference on Statistical Practice
February 16–18 | Orlando, FL
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