An application of enterprise systems in quality management of products

Safety is arguably the primary concern for consumer products. Popular quality management methods such as Total Quality Management provide enterprises with the vital tools to ensure the expected product quality in production. However, the safety of a consumer product also rely on numerous factors involved in its life cycle, and some of which are difficult to control. It is challenging to acquire and integrate the information from all of the sources involved in the supply chain to assess the risk level of a product. A few of information systems have been reported for product risk management in the developed countries and regions such as Japan and Europe; however, those systems are not universally applicable, in particular in developing countries, since the safety standards as well as other important factors involved in the deployment of products vary from country to country. The use of enterprise systems (ES) has become increasingly popular in both manufacturing and service industries. An ES, especially its QMS (Quality Management System), can be a promising solution to this problem. This paper discusses the application of QMS in ES and presents an application in risk assessment of consumer products.