Examine the role and tasks of purchasing in assuring product quality from suppliers, with reference to: a) specification of quality requirements b) supplier quality audit c) contractual terms

Introduction Purchasing is critical to the effective management of material logistics (Ford, 2002). Positioned at the interface between the customer and the supplier, responsibility often falls on this function for managing the relationship between the customers and suppliers in the supply chain. The role of purchasing is a gateway to suppliers so that other business functions can communicate with counterpart within the supplier organizations (Leenders et al., 1994) Product quality is rapidly becoming an important competitive issue (…

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