Date of Graduation

8-2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Industrial Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Nachtmann, Heather L.

Committee Member

Chimka, Justin R.

Second Committee Member

LaScola Needy, Kim L.

Third Committee Member

Pohl, Edward A.

Fourth Committee Member

Waller, Matthew A.

Keywords

Health and environmental sciences; Applied sciences; Health care delivery; Supply chains; Survey research

Abstract

This research is motivated by opportunities to improve the cost and quality of healthcare delivery through improved supply chain processes. This research assesses the quality of the healthcare supply chain and identifies factors that are driving supply chain excellence among organizations in the healthcare industry. The first objective of this research is to assess the state of quality measurement in the healthcare supply chain. The achievement of this first objective is presented in Chapter 3 of this dissertation in the form of a manuscript accepted for publication in The Quality Management Journal. The second research objective is to develop an optimization-based methodology to extract the maximum amount of survey data from a dataset containing missing responses. The work in support of the second objective is presented in Chapter 4 as a second revision of a manuscript under review by the International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques & Strategies. The third research objective is to identify the cost and quality factors that are driving supply chain excellence among organizations in the healthcare industry through empirical analysis. The achievement of the third objective is presented in Chapter 5. The contributions of this work can be used by healthcare supply chain researchers and practitioners to assess and improve their healthcare supply chain operations.

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