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ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE AS A DRIVER OF SUPERIOR QUALITY
Author(s) -
PIL FRITS K.,
ROTHENBERG SANDRA
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
production and operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.279
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1937-5956
pISSN - 1059-1478
DOI - 10.1111/j.1937-5956.2003.tb00211.x
Subject(s) - automotive industry , reciprocal , quality (philosophy) , competitive advantage , set (abstract data type) , computer science , manufacturing engineering , environmental quality , environmental impact assessment , business , operations management , process management , environmental economics , marketing , engineering , ecology , economics , philosophy , linguistics , epistemology , biology , programming language , aerospace engineering
We explore theoretically and empirically how efforts to enhance environmental performance may enable other types of manufacturing improvements. Drawing on a unique data set comprised of detailed surveys of 42 automotive assembly plants, associated quality metrics, and in‐depth qualitative data from 17 automotive assembly plants, we show that attaining superior environmental performance can be a significant driver of superior quality. We highlight the synergistic and reciprocal nature of environmental and broader manufacturing improvement efforts, and show that environmental improvement tools and know‐how can be an important source of competitive advantage.