The Procurement and Supply Manager's Desk Reference, + Website, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 12

Quality

Virtually all organizations strive to improve the quality of their products and services. In fact, quality is often the most critical aspect of the product or service we buy, so it is not surprising to learn that a great deal of effort is spent identifying the degree to which our purchase conforms to the established quality requirements.

In its supplier management role, one of the key responsibilities of the Procurement Department is to ensure that the organization's quality requirements are being met consistently in order for it to maximize the value from its purchase. But “quality” itself seems to be so broad a subject that we are often at odds as to what exactly we mean when we speak of it.

We turn, therefore, to a review of the basic concepts of quality management in this chapter to ensure you understand what quality means, how it is measured, and how we go about achieving its full value. Here, let's look at how you will generally manage your quality activities, how you will measure your suppliers’ performance, and how you will go about ensuring that your organization's overall quality objectives are being achieved.

Managing Quality Performance

Managing quality performance has a number of aspects: First, we need to define what we mean by quality and how it fits into our overall organizational strategy. Second, we need to understand where our organization is currently operating in the range of acceptable performance. And third, we need to determine how we ...