The philosophies of quality, definition, and approaches to quality management represent a company. Ideally, suppliers play a significant role in the management of quality within an organization. Failing to work with suppliers that understand the definition of quality management, philosophies, and company approaches to quality management impacts the performance of the product or service being offered. The lack of sufficient understanding of a company’s quality management affects supplier quality management, which results in various product quality and non-compliance issues (Zehir, Ertosun, Zehir, and Müceldilli, 2012). For instance, a supplier may fail to meet the product specifications, which means that the stock is unfit for sale or damaged. Companies that fail to pass on the philosophy and approaches of quality through strict requirements, education, and oversight to their suppliers, make it difficult for suppliers to understand their expectations, which may lead to product failure.
Suppliers that fail to understand a company’s approach, philosophies and definition of quality management also lack a sufficient understanding of the business they are serving thus fails to meet the company and consumer needs effectively. Quality and delay issues in the supply chain increase, thus influencing the flow of operations and total customer satisfaction. Relatively, the cost of operations increases since the company incurs losses and requires more capital to facilitate their success. This is because the defective products increase, increasing the manufacturing cost, thus lowering production.
Failing to understand the philosophies of quality leads to a lack of continuous improvement in the supply chain. This may lead to the product stagnating while other products are improving in quality function (Zehir, Ertosun, Zehir, and Müceldilli, 2012). Therefore, a poor understanding of the company philosophies of quality and approaches of quality management by the suppliers may lower productivity, drive consumers to look for higher quality products, increase the manufacturing and operation costs, thus limiting the business improvement process. It is vital to increase the suppliers’ understanding of the quality management approaches and policies of the company to facilitate the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness.
