| Manufacturing as well as retailing institutions are now practicing a new, more dedicated way of conducting short- and long-range business. The old strategy of switching suppliers in the aim of decreasing total costs or improving delivery times has largely been abandoned. Instead, manufacturing as well as retailing firms have adopted a new business strategy known as Single Sourcing.; Several researchers have looked at a variety of criteria along which manufacturing firms assess and select the supply partner most suitable to their ends and purposes. Most of these supplier selection criteria fall into one of three categories: Leadership-related characteristics, Organization-related characteristics, or Product-related characteristics. This research project dealt with the general topic of supplier selection, examining supplier selection vis-a-vis a product-related characteristics standpoint. Thus, the different product-related characteristics that lend importance to the process of selecting a parts supplier were heretofore assessed in order to determine how well they predict supplier selection. The Defect Rate characteristic and its role in the selection prediction was given specific attention to determine its importance in this process.; Ninety-one Master's level Accountancy and Business Administration students were presented with two sets of three common profiles of different prospective parts suppliers on two occasions: one set pertaining to capital-intensive parts and the other set pertaining to labor-intensive parts. Each profile described a hypothetical assembly firm that the students would be working for, described the prospective parts supplier firm under consideration, and indicated the prospective parts supplier's standing on the five product-related characteristics of Cost, Timely Delivery, Quality, Service, and Defect Rate. In addition, the subjects were asked to ignore other leadership-related and organization-related characteristics, and to focus solely on the product-related ones in reviewing and assessing the likelihood of selecting that prospective parts supplier.; The findings of this research effort offer some support for Defect Rate per se as a significant individual predictor of the selection of capital-intensive parts suppliers and labor-intensive parts suppliers under certain conditions. The findings also offer burgeoning evidence for the product-related characteristics of Cost, Timely Delivery, Quality, and Service as individual predictors of the selection of parts suppliers. When considered collectively, various combinations of the product-related characteristics were found to be the most sensitive predictors of the various parts suppliers selection. Limitations of the present research effort are discussed, as are recommendations for future research. |
