Total Quality Management The Strategic AdvantageHames, Richard D.
1991 International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management
doi: 10.1108/09600039110144255
Total quality management is a new management philosophy that isconcerned with sustained ongoing improvement to organisational processesand the outcomes of those processes. It challenges the status quo andinsists that everything an enterprise does and how it does it, can bedone better to the greater satisfaction of customers. Thehistory of TQM is outlined and the distinguishing features andfundamental principles behind this paradigm shift in management cultureare introduced. The major dimensions and basic approaches to quality aredefined and the nature of processes and process variation explained. Thearticle concludes with a description of integrated process managementthe TQM model for the future.
Elders Pastoral DistributionKosta, Andrew
1991 International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management
doi: 10.1108/EUM0000000000381
In Australia the agricultural industry is experiencing majortrading difficulties. The project reported here was undertaken toinvestigate means of streamlining the operation of a major nationalsupplier of farm input products with the objective of decentralisedselling with centralised costeffective support services and nationallycentralised order processing. The preliminary logistics audit isdescribed including supply chain analysis, inventory management, orderprocessing and freightdistribution. Analysis of this led to detailedrecommendations. The many recommendations were implemented by thecompany during the year of the projects lifetime a signalsuccess
Management Sophistication and Service PerformanceMarr, Norman E.
1991 International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management
doi: 10.1108/09600039110003134
The degree of association between sophistication in distributionmanagement and service performance differs across industries. Whilethere are significant associations with some of the indicators ofmanagement sophistication in all three industries used in this study,there was no consistency in the results. The only industry for whichthere was statistical support for a positive association betweenmanagement sophistication and service performance is foodstuffs. Eventhis only indicates poor service providers were less sophisticatedmanagement. For all three industry groups there is evidence thatfactors, other than the level of management sophistication, haveinfluenced the service rankings. The differences in the relevantimportance of customer service and the various elements of distributionservice may be one such factor. The inconclusiveness of associationresults may have been contributed to by the failure to take into accountinterrelationships between various subsets of management variables.