Supply Chain Proximity and Product Quality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bray, Robert L.; Serpa, Juan Camilo; Colak, Ahmet
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; McGill University; Clemson University
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2018.3161
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 4079-4099
• 关键词: quality management; empirical operations; Supply chain management; geographic proximity

摘要

We estimate the effect of supply chain proximity on product quality. Merging four automotive data sets, we create a supply chain sample that reports the failure rate of 27,807 auto components, the location of 529 upstream component factories, and the location of 275 downstream assembly plants. We find that defect rates are higher when upstream and downstream factories are farther apart. Specifically, we estimate that increasing the distance between an upstream component factory and a downstream assembly plant by an order of magnitude increases the component's expected defect rate by 3.9%. We find that quality improves more slowly across geographically dispersed supply chains. We also find that supply chain distance is more detrimental to quality when automakers produce early-generation models or high-end products, when they buy components with more complex configurations, or when they source from suppliers who invest relatively little in research and development.