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Coordination of quality in production chains: struture and method for agri-food chains

Today's reality prevents companies in general from planning or acting alone, requiring that they engage in coordinated action with others in the same production chain. For this reason, production chain coordination is becoming a widespread practice to promote integrated management of companies that share the goal of adding value to the final product of the chain. There are many reasons for coordinated action in production chains, including improvement of product quality and reduction of losses and of production and transactions costs. This paper discusses the problem of quality in agri-food production chains. A model is proposed for quality coordination to aid in both product quality assurance and improved quality throughout the chain. The model is structured on the following elements: the agri-food production chain and its segments, product quality and quality management requirements of customers and of the institutional environment, the coordinating agent and the coordination information system. This system comprises information on product quality and quality management requirements, production chain quality performance indicators, the identification of problems, action plans and monitoring of improvements.

quality coordination; agri-food production chain; quality coordination method


Universidade Federal de São Carlos Departamento de Engenharia de Produção , Caixa Postal 676 , 13.565-905 São Carlos SP Brazil, Tel.: +55 16 3351 8471 - São Carlos - SP - Brazil
E-mail: gp@dep.ufscar.br