An integrated system of activity-based quality optimisation and economic incentive schemes for a global supply chain

摘要

In order to lower manufacturing costs and raise flexibility, the global supply chain has become a widely adopted production pattern nowadays. However, because of its characteristics of cross-nations, cross-cultures, and weak links, to manage the quality of a global supply chain is not an easy task. This is not only a moral problem, but also an incentive problem. The economics theories suggest that sufficient incentives will be required to solve such a problem, while the measurement of quality efforts, suitable incentive schemes, and optimal incentive amounts for a global supply chain still have not been established in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to combine activity-based costing (ABC) with economic incentive schemes (EISs) to develop a system of optimal incentive planning for global supply chain quality management (GSCQM). A zero-one goal programming (ZOGP) model is proposed to decide the optimal qualities after the activity cost analyses, then the optimal qualities are utilised to determine the optimal incentive amounts by the EISs. The cases of full information and asymmetric information are distinguished. This novel approach can make the initiating company use lower but effective expenses to boost product qualities. An illustrative case study is provided, and the sensitivity analysis is also presented in this paper. The incentive estimation method developed by this paper can also be widely extended to the quality management of various industries and supply chains.