Managing quality : integrating the supply chain

"Quality management involves flows. There are process flows, information flows, material flows, and flows of funds. Each of these flows has to operate effectively, efficiently, and with outstanding quality. Like a river, we refer to these as upstream and downstream flows. The sums of these flows comprise the supply chain. Considering the supply chain causes us to think about quality differently. One of the problems with quality efforts has been that they tend to be too internally oriented. The supply chain causes us to expand our vision as we externalize processes that had previously been internalized. They include upstream processes relating to our dealing with suppliers- negotiating, selecting, and improving supplier performance- and downstream processes- delivering products and services and serving customers"--