Allying for quality excellence: scope for expert systems in supplier quality management

Over the past decade, quality managers and scholars have focused increased attention on supplier quality as a key resource for organisations. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study into how organisations rank supplier selection attributes and the extent to which use is made of decision support systems (expert systems in particular) in supplier quality management. Overall, quality was ranked the most important attribute. Paradoxically, decision‐support/knowledge‐based systems are not being utilized in solving the multi‐criteria decision problem inherent in supplier quality management. It is speculated that the lack of robust strategy for combining both human and artificial intelligence in supplier quality integration means that many organisations are making themselves vulnerable as out‐sourcing and strategic partnerships become important determinants of competitive advantage. Consequently, this paper assesses the scope for expert systems, a branch of artificial intelligence that is capable of helping organisations to co‐ordinate and harness potentially diverse sources of input resources in supplier quality management.