The presented paper underlines the importance of
production in globally distributed networks, in which each site
acts autonomously according to its individual target system
influenced by specific location factors or its defined site role.
Especially ensuring a high production quality along the
distributed value-adding process implicates special challenges
in this context. In current literature, there are no methods for
multi-criteria evaluation of quality control strategies in
production networks with respect to individual target systems.
The described concept enables globally operating
companies to systematically design an optimal across-site
quality control strategy by evaluating different quality
measures depending on individual target systems. First, a
target system model is derived from literature, which
differentiates site roles according to eight target dimensions.
Second, a categorization and evaluation concept of quality
measures is presented. This concept is integrated with the
target system model into a network simulation as a
combination of discrete-event and multi-agent simulation.
This multi-method simulation allows for a dynamic evaluation
of different discrete combinations of improvement measures
regarding the inspection strategy as well as process quality.
An assessment module, whereby the benefit of each
improvement measure can be evaluated with regard to the
individual target system, extends the network simulation.
Further research includes evaluating the concept in a real
case study. Sensitivity analysis with regard to internal
influencing factors, such as demand behavior of a customer or
insolvency of a supplier, as well as external factors such as
currency fluctuations have to be conducted. Furthermore, the
network simulation could be enhanced by an optimization
module, which could either allow for a direct definition of the
optimal strategy or an evaluation of the simulation results
using statistical tools.