Supply Chain is a broad process which involves several players. Therefore, there are different factors which can affect the quality of the whole supply chain like what is the data quality, how information is being shared and managed through the whole chain and to what degree suppliers, customers and third parties can be involved.
The attached paper can be good for start but there are of course papers which study just one of the affecting factors or several of them.
Supply chain management is a very broad area. If you have any niche please share that. If you can select an area, for example- supply chain risk management; logistics, or integration, then it would be easier to comment on your question.
We edited a special issue Production Planning & Control couple years ago on reference models for Supply Chain. You can find some papers published in that special issue very useful
SCM deal with physical material, information material and finance. first decide in which area you want to work. latest in supply chain research is big data management and cloud computing (virtual decision making). these both topics can help you in improving process quality
Consider the impact of high quality products or services on a company or industry. Surely it provides some especial benefits and advantages for that company. This feature will expand in supply chain and more benefit will provide suitable situation for every aspects of supply chain. As you know the meaning of chain ,every segment or ring of that will be affected by another rings.