The Impact of Interorganizational Alliances in Improving Supplier Quality

Examines the interorganizational alliance of a buyer and supplier with the expressed objective of improving the quality of existing purchased parts. Supplier quality can be improved through the implementation of various programmes such as statistical process control (SPC). Supplier quality improvement is viewed as two‐dimensional; there may be improvement owing to the modification of product designs or to implementation of process analysis techniques such as SPC. Examines the relative importance of each dimension of supplier quality improvement. The potential for improvement caused by each type of activity has significant organizational and resource allocation implications for both buyer and supplier.