Joseph R. Carter

An analysis of supply risk assessment techniques

Purchasing organizations are exposed to risk in their interactions with suppliers, whether it is recognized and managed, addressed in a cursory manner, or altogether ignored. In order to understand the supply risk that exists, purchasing organizations can proactively assess the probability and impact of supply risk in advance, or reactively discover risk after a detrimental event occurs. The purpose of this study is to explore, analyze, and derive common themes on supply risk assessment techniques. Findings from this research indicate that purchasing organizations can assess supply risk with techniques that focus on addressing supplier quality issues, improving supplier processes, and reducing the likelihood of supply disruptions. From an agency theory perspective, these risk assessment techniques facilitate the obtaining of information by purchasing organizations to verify supplier behaviors, promoting goal congruence between buying and selling firms, and reducing outcome uncertainty associated with inbound supply.

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.

The role of buyer and supplier relationships in integrating TQM through the supply chain

Abstract Many academics and practitioners have alluded to the importance of total quality management (TQM) principles and the important role the purchasing function plays in the quality process. However, the role of the buyer–supplier relationship in the TQM process has not been directly investigated to any large extent. Three hypotheses concerning the role of buyer–supplier relationships in the success of TQM implementation were tested. The results demonstrate that buyer–supplier relationships are different in firms with successful TQM programs. Hypothesis 1 suggests that those firms with successful TQM programs will have more formal mechanisms for interacting with suppliers. The second hypothesis suggests that business units with more successful TQM programs exhibit a greater degree of competitive focus and single sourcing. The third hypothesis relates to a higher level understanding of internal and external customer needs by successful TQM adopters. All hypotheses were supported. The buyer–supplier relationships in firms with successful TQM programs are different than firms with less successful TQM programs.

Electronics industry drivers of intermediation and disintermediation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarize the current thinking on intermediation and disintermediation, extract candidate drivers for this cycle, capture the expert opinions on what is driving the cycle and determine the quantitative and qualitative conclusions related to the electronics industry supply network integration and requirements for its success.Design/methodology/approach – A series of one‐on‐one expert interviews were conducted to establish the validity of the initial list of drivers and to add to this list based upon their expert knowledge. A web‐based survey followed with the purpose of validating the final dimensions list and assessing the various alternative value propositions that intermediaries should be considering. Finally, a Delphi exercise concluded this research thrust by convening experts in the electronics supply network for a one‐day review of the results and a distillation of the results into expert forecasts of directions and trends.Findings – Any supply chain interme...

Impact of culture on supplier selection decision making

Purpose – Source location decision making is a contemporary problem facing many businesses as they globalize their supply chains. This paper seeks to empirically determine the influence of culture on the industrial procurement managers perception of the different characteristics of potential global sourcing locations, with a view to integrating the influence of culture operating at different levels into a global sourcing location decision framework; thereby enhancing managerial insights to the role played by culture in making decisions.Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies factor analysis and multiple regression on a survey sample of 181 responses gathered from native eastern and western procurement managers. The authors investigate how 12 procurement attributes drawn from the literature relate to each other with respect to low‐cost regions.Findings – The research results show that procurement managers select regions for low‐cost sourcing based on both specific measures and individual and/or gr...

The procurement function's role in strategic outsourcing from a process perspective

Outsourcing has grabbed headlines in the past few years. Some proclaim it as a necessary, effective and inevitable strategy to reduce costs, focus on the core business, maintain competitiveness and obtain needed capabilities. Others see outsourcing as a threat to jobs, companies, industries and whole economies. Barring a substantial reversal of current trends, outsourcing is here to stay. With that in mind, the authors undertook a research to understand the trends in outsourcing, how outsourcing decisions are made and how companies can be more successful in achieving their goals for outsourcing, and to clarify the role of procurement in strategic outsourcing success. Data was gathered from 165 procurement executives or their functional peers across 22 industries globally. This paper is a part of this research and aims at building an empirically validated outsourcing process model and discussing the procurement functions role in different phases and activities of strategic outsourcing.

An empirical analysis of foreign exchange management strategies in international sourcing

Examines the cost performance of various strategies for managing foreign exchange risk in international sourcing. The strategies represent a broad spectrum of approaches to exchange risk, ranging from naive to active. Of particular interest is the comparison of those strategies which use exchange rate forecasts with those which do not. Focuses on movements in the German mark/US dollar exchange rate for the period January 1986 through December 1990. Employs a historical simulation methodology to compare the performance of various strategies over this time frame. The results suggest that active approaches to exchange rate management warrant further attention.

Procurement from Developing Countries

In 2008, world trade amounted to over

A simulation approach for establishing limits on quality expenditures

15.8 trillion, and developing countries were the origin of 38 % of worldwide exports. In every case, a sourcing (buying) decision had to be made, and as we shall show, global logistics is both a logical and essential component in these decisions. This chapter first reviews the motivation for global sourcing/procurement and the role of logistics in executing this strategy. Then we indicate how procurement managers and their logistics service providers can obtain the necessary information to evaluate logistics capabilities throughout the world. Finally, we illustrate the importance of global logistics to sourcing/procurement through an Appendix, a case study that spans the U.S./Mexico border.

Interorganizational Determinants of Environmental Purchasing: Initial Evidence from the Consumer Products Industries*

This article proposes a methodology for quantitatively specifying the hidden cost of quality in a dry goods distribution ware house. Determining this cost is particularly important in manual paced environments since it is difficult to estimate the potential savings of quality improvements. We develop a simulation approach for predicting the manpower requirements as a function of a percentage error function. This method will quantitatively set a maximum expenditure limit for any proposed quality improvement effort. The methodology could also be adapted to any other flexible manual paced operation using autonomous operators.