Synergies between supply chain management and quality management: emerging implications

This paper examines the potential that quality management offers for improving supply chain management performance. Based on the theoretical and descriptive literature, four themes related to this topic are extracted. These are related to the pursuit of supply chain and quality goals simultaneously, leading to the development of cumulative capabilities, the relationship between quality management practices and supply chain performance measures and the relationship between a specific set of quality management practices known as co-makership and supply chain performance measures. Hypotheses were developed and tested using an existing database of information from 164 plants in the machinery, electronics and transportation components industries in the USA, Germany, Italy, Japan and England. There was strong support for all four hypotheses, indicating that there is a relationship between quality management and supply chain management. Practical implications and guidelines for managers focus upon leveraging this relationship as a competitive weapon in the increasingly complex global environment.