Articulo 76
Articulo 76
Articulo 76
Abstract:
The article presents the results of conducted empirical research in which an attempt was made to identify the expec-
tations of manufacturing companies towards suppliers in terms of process (logistics customer service, supervision
over property customer, production monitoring, supplier supervision) improvement. The research was conducted us-
ing the Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) technique. The research covered 150 production medium and
large size companies (employing over 50 people) who were suppliers for enterprises from the automotive, electrome-
chanical and chemical sectors operating in the Polish industrial market. The expectations of production companies
towards their suppliers regarding improvement of processes concept were assigned a rank on a scale from one (the
least important criterion) to five (the most significant). The analysis of the results of the conducted research shows
that the implementation of management tools such as international organizational standards (ISO), Kaizen or Lean
Management by companies that are purchasers may affect the expectations towards suppliers in terms of improving
their processes. The considerations undertaken in this article confirm that in order to compete on the modern
market, close cooperation and cooperation within the supply chain are needed. Representatives of the surveyed
manufacturing companies notice this fact and set high expectations for their suppliers in virtually all the surveyed
aspects. Conducted research shows that suppliers must pay special attention to the implementation of processes
related to ensuring and improving the technical quality of products by focusing on improving control and
supervision processes and logistical aspects of customer service. Proper implementation and improvement of these
processes requires a methodical ap- proach. Based on the obtained research results, managers of organizations
supplying manufacturing companies can obtain important information that will be used to improve processes that
are important from the point of view of their recipients. On this basis, they can make an optimal allocation of
resources and modify the management style to im- prove cooperation with manufacturing companies.
Keywords: manufacturing companies, supplier relationship, management systems, improvement processes
Contact:
1) [email protected] [https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4127-1192] – corresponding author; 2) [email protected]
[https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3097-5445]; 3) [email protected] [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1655-6500]
Article is available in open access and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
2 Urbaniak, M., Zimon, D., Madzik, P.,
Archives of Transport, 68(4), 157-174, 2023
1. Introduction
terms of quality, timeliness, quantity, order se-
It can be commonly noticed that many enterprises,
quence) are of particular importance. A vital feature
when establishing relationships with new suppliers,
is also the assessment of the communication be-
focus their requirements on the guidelines
tween partners (effectiveness and the response time
contained in international quality, environmental
to inquiries, orders, complaints, technical or organi-
and safety management standards. The
zational problems). Increasingly important as a cri-
implementation of these guidelines allows suppliers
terion for assessing suppliers is innovation and joint
to effectively en- sure the quality of products, as
cooperation on solutions for new and modified
well as standardize and improve their processes. It
prod- ucts (Wang et al. 2021).
can also be seen that the manufacturing companies
The expectations of buyers towards the supplier im-
which are the purchas- ers, have expectations that
plementation of a quality management system
are aimed at the continu- ous development of the
based on the guidelines contained in the
suppliers' potential, thanks to which it is possible to
International Or- ganization for Standardization
improve the efficiency and effectiveness of
(ISO) 9001 standard focus on the supplier ensuring
processes in the supply chains (Basu et al. 2018,
the required parame- ters for products, as well as on
Hawkins, et al. 2020; Ratkiewicz and Walczak,
improving opera- tional processes. In some sectors,
2022). The fulfillment of these expecta- tions is
the requirements placed on suppliers in the field of
verified both through supplier self-assess- ment
quality manage- ment do not only concern
cards (which are used in particular by interna-
compliance with the guidelines contained in the
tional concerns) and through supplier audits per-
ISO 9001 standard (Huq et al. 2016). The
formed by buyers (recipients) or on their behalf.
dissemination of the concept of cor- porate social
The verification of the expectations of the
responsibility results in an ever wider range of
purchasing en- terprises is increasingly based on
expectations towards partners who are the source of
multi-criteria eval- uation (Min et al. 2018). It can
purchases in terms of limiting their nega- tive
also be observed that many international concerns,
impact on the natural environment (Gupta et al.
when assessing poten- tial partners, also follow the
2019). For this reason, more and more enterprises
guidelines related to the principles of corporate
expect suppliers to implement environmental man-
social responsibility (Asif et al. 2019). The initial
agement system based on the guidelines contained
comprehensive assessment is conducted by
in the ISO 14001 standard (Kumar et al. 2019,
analyzing the data contained in the self-assessment
Saghiri and Mirzabeiki 2021). It can also be ob-
cards provided by suppliers in terms of detailed
served that the increasing level of awareness of
requirements relating to the guidelines contained in
busi- ness entities that are customers concerns the
international quality, environmental and safety
risk of threats related to products and processes
management standards (Schulte and Hall- stedt
imple- mented in supply chains. Risk mitigation in
2018). The credibility of the data contained in the
relation to processes has a broad scope, as it relates
self-assessment questionnaires is verified by au-
to ensur- ing occupational health and safety,
diting the suppliers (Nikoofal and Gümüs 2020).
information, or the entire supply chain. Due to the
Particularly important for industrial buyers who
prospect of shap- ing long-term partnerships
pur- chase raw materials, parts, components and
between business enti- ties, the legal and financial
infra- structure elements is the technical quality,
situation of suppliers is also important. Assessment
which should be conducted by taking into account
of the legal and financial situation of suppliers is
the cri- teria relating to product safety (Yazdani et
conducted through due-dili- gence, which is the
al., 2022). Technical quality assessment by
investigation of ownership inter- est, fulfillment of
customers is ac- complished through a comparative
legal obligations, level of profita- bility, financial
laboratory anal- ysis of samples from potential
liquidity, shares in other enterprises, type and scope
suppliers and assess- ment of their compliance with
of insurance policies and financial guarantees. The
the required technical specification, trial purchase,
above-mentioned expectations are taken into
free temporary use (in relation to machines and
account by enterprises as criteria for qual- ifying
devices) and by collecting opinions from current
and evaluating suppliers. This evaluation is based
users (during the so-called reference visits). When
on the experience of cooperation (Salwin et al.,
evaluating suppliers, com- plaints (qualitative,
2022; Benton Jr. et al. 2020).
quantitative, errors in docu- ments), the timeliness
and flexibility of deliveries (in
Urbaniak, M., Zimon, D., Madzik, P., 159
Archives of Transport, 68(4), 157-174, 2023
4. Results
veyed enterprises. Among the surveyed organiza-
The sample consisted of 150 organizations. Their
tions, 57% belonged to large and 43% to medium-
structure can be found in Figure 1. While analyzing
sized enterprises (classified on the basis of the
the data contained in Figure 1, we note that more
num- ber of employees). Moreover, 61% of them
than half of the surveyed companies have imple-
were en- terprises with Polish capital and 39% with
mented the requirements of the ISO 14001
foreign capital. The surveyed companies operated
standard, while Kaizen is used by 26% of them.
mainly in the automotive, chemical and
Other sys- tems, such as industry systems or Lean
metallurgical indus- tries.
Manage- ment, were implemented by only a few of
the sur- Table 1. Overview of variables
Variable Code Measure
Capital Capital Nominal
Number of employees Size Ordinal
ISO 9001 ISO_9001 Nominal
Sector system SectorSystem Nominal
ISO 14001 ISO_14001 Nominal
ISO 45001 ISO 45001 Nominal
Kaizen 5S/ TMP Kaizen Nominal
Lean Management Lean Nominal
Sector Sector Nominal
Product design process ProdDes Ordinal
The supplier's ordering process SuppOrd Ordinal
Vendor selection process VendSel Ordinal
Process of periodic evaluation of suppliers SuppEva Ordinal
Quality control of the accepted delivery QCDel Ordinal
Control of compliance of the accepted delivery with the order QCOrdDel Ordinal
Accepting orders from customers AccOrd Ordinal
Process of technical preparation of production TechnPre Ordinal
Production planning process ProdPlan Ordinal
Production Production Ordinal
Maintenance Maint Ordinal
Quality control of the production process QCProdProc Ordinal
Quality control of the finished product QCFinProd Ordinal
Packing Packing Ordinal
Product storage in a consignment warehouse ProdStor Ordinal
The process of delivering to the customer CustDel Ordinal
Installing the product at the customer's site ProdInst Ordinal
Training and consultancy related to the use of the product Train Ordinal
Technical service TechServ Ordinal
Complaints service CompServ Ordinal
Waste disposal WastDisp Ordinal
164 Urbaniak, M., Zimon, D., Madzik, P.,
Archives of Transport, 68(4), 157-174, 2023
meta l; 36;
24%
50-249
automotive;
63; 42% employees;
65; 43%
Sector Size 250
employees
and more; 85;
57%
chemical; 51;
34%
Lean 24
Kaizen 39
Management system
Foreign; 59;
39% OHSAS_18001 12
Capital
ISO_14001 76
Polish; 92;
61%
SectorSystem 10
ISO_9001 148
Before the actual evaluation of the results, we by QCDel (Quality control of the accepted
tested the validity of the data. Non-response bias delivery), QCFinProd (Quality control of the
was tested by splitting the sample into early (n=71) finished product) and QCOrdDel (Control of
and late (n=79). We then randomly selected ten compliance of the ac- cepted delivery with the
variables between these groups. The results of the order). All these variables relate to quality control,
t-test reached a p-value higher than 0.05, indicating which is an interesting find- ing. It is, therefore,
a lack of non-response bias. Scale reliability of 21 evident that quality control plays a critical role in in
ordinal variables was performed by individual building proper relationships with suppliers.
investigation. Cronbach's alpha reached 0.925, It can be observed that companies operating in the
which indicates a high level of reliability. In the production sectors, while improving their
suitability test of the variables, we noted only processes, also require actions in this area towards
insignificant improvements that would have suppliers. The results of these studies indicate that
occurred if we excluded the given variable from the the expec- tations of production companies towards
analysis - Table 2. However, by excluding it, we suppliers focus primarily on ensuring and
would have lost a much higher in- terpretive improving the tech- nical quality of products. For
ability, so we kept all the variables in the analysis. this reason, the expec- tations of the surveyed
Figure 2 shows an overview of the average values business entities towards suppliers relate primarily
of expectations of manufacturing companies for to the improvement of the effectiveness of control
sup- pliers regarding the improvement of their processes (acceptance of de- liveries, production,
processes. The result shows that the respondents finished products) in order to avoid the risk of
assigned high values to almost all variables - product non-compliance.
usually higher aver- age values than 4. The highest
values were achieved
Urbaniak, M., Zimon, D., Madzik, P., 165
Archives of Transport, 68(4), 157-174, 2023
5(9), 18941-18945.
[31] Min, X, Chao, F., Nan-Ping, F., Guang-Yan,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2018.06.244.
L., Wen-Jun, Ch., Shan-Lin, Y. (2018).
[22] Kumar, C. V. S., Routroy, S. (2017). Evaluation of supplier performance of high-
Analyzing a manufacturer’s returns from speed train based on multi-stage multi-criteria
supplier develop- ment programs. Materials decision- making method. Knowledge-Based
Today: Proceedings, 4(2), 2255-2262. Systems, 162, 238–251.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2017.02.073.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2018.07.013.
[23] Kumar, C. V. S., Routroy, S. (2017).
[32] Mukherjee, S., Baral, M. M., Lavanya, B. L.,
Improving supply chain performance by
Nagariya, R., Singh Patel, B., & Chittipaka
Supplier Develop- ment program through
(2023). Intentions to adopt the blockchain: in-
enhanced visibility. Ma- terials Today:
vestigation of the retail supply chain. Manage-
Proceedings, 5(2), 3629-3638.
ment Decision, 61(5), 1320-1351.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2017.11.613. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-03-2022-0369.
[24] Kumar, C.V.S, Routroy, S., Mishra, R.K.
[33] Negash, Y.T., Kartika, J., Tseng, M.-L., Tan,
(2018). Lean Supplier Management for Better
K. (2020). A novel approach to measure
Cost Structures. Materials Today: Proceedings,
product quality in sustainable supplier
5, 18941–18945.
selection. Journal of Cleaner Production, 252,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2018.06.244.
2020, 119838.
[25] Kumar, M., Rodrigues, V.S. (2020). Synergetic
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119838.
effect of lean and green on innovation: A re-
[34] Nikoofal, M.E., Gümüs, M. (2020). Value of
source-based perspective. International Journal
audit for supply chains with hidden action and
of Production Economics, 219, 469–479.
information. European Journal of Operational
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.04.007.
Research, 285, 902–915.
[26] Lettice, F., Wyatt, C., Evans, S. (2010).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2020.02.024.
Buyer– supplier partnerships during product
[35] O’ Connor, N., Lowry, P.B., Treiblmaier, H.
design and development in the global
(2020). Interorganizational cooperation and
automotive sector: Who invests, in what and
supplier performance inhigh-technology supply
when?. International Journal of Production
chains. Heliyon, 6(3), 1-16.
Economics, 127(2), 309- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon 2020.e03434.
319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2009.08.007.
[36] Praxmarer-Carus, S., Sucky, E., Durst, S.M.
[27] Li, S., & Chen, X. (2019). The role of supplier
(2013). The relationship between the perceived
collaboration and risk management capabilities
shares of costs and earnings in supplier devel-
in managing product complexity. Operations
opment programs and supplier satisfaction. In-
Management Research, 12(3), 146-158.
dustrial Marketing Management, 42(2), 202–
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12063-019-00144-w.
210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmar-
[28] Makinde, O., Selepe, R., Munyai, Th.,
man.2012.12.008.
Ramdass, K. (2020). Development of a
[37] Proch, M., Worthmann, K., Schlüchtermann, J.
supplier assessment form for an electronic
(2017). A negotiation-based algorithm to coor-
product man- ufacturing organization. Procedia
dinate supplier development in decentralized
Manufactur- ing, 43, 743–750.
supply chains. European Journal of Operational
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2020.02.109.
Research, 256(1), 412–429.
[29] Medina Serrano, R., González-Ramírez, R., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2016.06.029.
Gascó, J. L., & Llopis, J. (2019). Sustainable [38] Purwanto, A., & Juliana, J. (2022). The effect
supplier evaluation practices across the supply of supplier performance and transformational
chain. Direccion y Organizacion, 69, 13-26. sup- ply chain leadership style on supply chain
https://doi.org/10.37610/dyo.v0i69.558. per- formance in manufacturing companies.
[30] Min, H. (2022). Assessing the impact of a Uncer- tain Supply Chain Management,
COVID-19 pandemic on supply chain transfor- 10(2), 511-
mation: an exploratory analysis. Benchmarking: 516.
An International Journal, 30(6), 1765–1781. https://doi.org/10.5267/j.uscm.2021.12.001.
https://doi.org/10.1108/bij-04-2022-0260.
[39] Ratkiewicz, A., Walczak, J., (2022). Difficult-
to-measure integration measurement method
Urbaniak, M., Zimon, D., Madzik, P., 173
Archives of Transport, 68(4), 157-174, 2023
251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kno-
[58] Zimon, D., Madzik, P., & Sroufe, R. (2020).
sys.2018.07.013.
The influence of ISO 9001 & ISO 14001 on
[56] Yazdani, M., Pamucar, D., Chatterjee, P., & sus- tainable supply chain management in the
Torkayesh, A. E. (2022). A multi-tier sustaina- textile industry. Sustainability, 12(10), 4282.
ble food supplier selection model under uncer- https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104282.
tainty. Operations Management Research, [59] Zivaljevic, A., Zakic, K., & Bevanda, V.
15(1), 116-145. (2022). What would QMS implementation re-
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12063-021-00186-z.
ally bring to a company?‐Theoretical review on
[57] Zimon, D., & Madzík, P. (2020). Standardized
benefits and disadvantages researched in prac-
management systems and risk management in
tice. Journal of Organizational Change
the supply chain. International Journal of Qual-
Manage- ment, 35(6), 805-845.
ity & Reliability Management. 37(2), 305-327.
https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-03-2020-0070.
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQRM-04-2019-0121.