No matter the size of the company, quality is critical. The companies listed in the Quality Leadership 100 run the gamut from small manufacturers-such as the number 1 company Advanced Instrument Development Inc. with 27 employees to the more than 7,000 employees at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, the company taking second-place honors this year.

Computer-aided inspection can be used as a Six Sigma tool for getting closer to zero defects.

The switch to ISO/TS 16949 forces manufacturers to assess the assessors.

When Sonoco, the world’s largest producer of engineered carriers, continued to experience complaints about variation in the outside diameter of the cores that it supplied to its paper mill customers from its Midwest manufacturing plants, the company’s quality personnel knew something had to be done.