Managing quality decisions in supply chain

Management of Product Quality and Competitiveness of Agricultural Enterprises in the Context of International Integration

The role of quality management in the enhancement of competitiveness of enterprises is considered. The modern factors of quality of product assurance as a component of enterprise competitiveness are defined by authors. The data on the milk prices of different classes sold by agricultural enterprises for dairy plants and the cost of milk production at these enterprises in 2015-2019 in Ukraine were analyzed. This analysis testifies low incentives of milk producers to increase the quality of products due to the cost-price factor and substitution effect. The main blocks of the integrated quality management system (IQMS) are designed for agricultural enterprises to increase their competitiveness. The construction of IQMS of enterprises is made on the foundation of TQM and added by the focuses, tools, blocks, and forms of integration within the system and with other enterprise systems and the external environment. The findings of this study came up with the importance of implementing marketing of quality block, and built-in environment quality management in all blocks of IQMS.

Practical implications of cost of quality: a systematic literature review

Purpose

The present study focuses on the cost of quality (CoQ) based on which organizations can evaluate their quality-related activities in economic terms. The purpose of the study is to identify the CoQ practical implications as well as to group them into logical themes.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted based on well-known academic publishers, such as Emerald Insight, Elsevier/ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis, Wiley and Scopus. Sixty-seven peer-reviewed journal articles in the field of CoQ were collected, which were published between 2010 and 2019. The “affinity diagram” was applied to group the practical implications identified into logical themes.

Findings

A plethora of CoQ practical implications were identified and grouped into the following meaningful themes: benefits of CoQ measurement, effects of CoQ, business sectors measuring CoQ, factors influencing CoQ measurement, CoQ elements, future research in CoQ and the role of government.

Research limitations/implications

The limited number of the publishers and keywords used to search for the articles of interest, as well as the subjectivity of grouping the large number of the practical implications into themes are the main limitations of the present study. These limitations constitute the basis upon which future literature review studies can be designed.

Practical implications

The present study by presenting analytically and in summary (through the themes revealed) the CoQ practical implications, provides all the respective available literature in a single study for the benefit of practitioners and academics. Thus, clear and straightforward guidelines are given to practitioners with regard to CoQ issues and academics with regard to research topics of high interest.

Originality/value

No previous SLR study focusing on analyzing the practical implications of CoQ has been published so far.