Title: Product recall: supply chain quality issue?

Authors: Ashwini Sharma; Dixit Garg; Ashish Agarwal

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, ITM University, HUDA Sector 23A, Gurgaon 122017, India ' National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India ' School of Engineering and Technology, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Maidangarhi, New Delhi, India

Abstract: Regardless of a company's efforts possibility exists that defective products may reach the customers which may results in to recall. Unless appropriate action is taken promptly, these defective products may pose serious threat on the company's profile. Recently, numbers of products have been recalled especially from automotive industries which were considered to be the best in class and brand. Researchers have attempted various studies on product recall but, hardly any study was conducted to find out the supply chain quality perspective. Thus, it is unobserved topic of research by the researchers and practitioners. In this paper, major recalls over a period of 20 years were searched through literature, print and electronic media and by AHP analysis the authors revealed nine major causes for recalls. After Pareto analysis most significant factors contributing to 66% of recalls were found to be rush through design, safety analysis and vendor quality. Based on the above results authors found that the product recall predominantly depends on how the quality is being managed in the supply chain.

Keywords: supply chain management; SCM; product recall; quality management; AHP; analytical hierarchy process; supply chain quality; defective products; rush-through design; safety analysis; vendor quality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIE.2014.069059

International Journal of Intelligent Enterprise, 2014 Vol.2 No.4, pp.277 - 293

Received: 19 Jun 2013
Accepted: 03 Oct 2013
Published online: 30 Apr 2015 *

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