Collaborative methodology for supply chain quality management: framework and integration with strategic decision processes in product development

The new generation of network-based organizations has triggered the emergence of distributed and more complex contexts for the analysis of firms' strategies. This gradual change in the way we understand enterprises has induced radical evolutions on the Quality Management domain. As a consequence, the Problem Solving Methodologies (PSM)widely used in industry and positioned up to now as one of the key elements for achieving continuous improvement efforts within local scopes are now insufficient to deal with major and distributed problems and requirements in this new environment. The definition of a generic and collaborative PSM well-adapted to supply chain contexts is one of the purposes of this paper. Additional requirements linked to specificities carried out by the introduction of a networked context within the methodology scope, the relational aspects of the supply chains, complexity and distribution of information, distributed decision-making processes and knowledge management challenges are some of the aspects being addressed by the proposed methodology. A special focus is made on benefits obtained through the integration of those elements across all problem-solving phases and particularly a proposal for multi-level root-cause analysis articulating both horizontal and vertical decision processes of supply chains is presented. In addition to laying out the expected benefits of such a methodology in the Quality Management area, the article studies the reuse of all the quality-related evidence capitalized in series phase as a driver for improving upstream phases of product development projects. This paper addresses this link between series and development activities in light of the proposed PSM and intends to encourage discussion on the definition of new approaches for Quality Management throughout the whole product life cycle. Some enabling elements in the decision-making processes linked to both the problem-solving in series phase and the roll-out of new products are introduced.