Are small manufacturers failing the quality test?

Abstract

Several manufacturing firms were surveyed to find answers to questions about their manufacturing quality, and to determine what activities they were using in achieving quality products. Firms of all sizes were queried and smaller firms were compared to larger firms. Attempts at finding significant differences between small and large firms were successful. The responses of the larger firms demonstrated that significant differences exist when compared to the smaller firms in a variety of continuous improvement activities that are a part of the process used to achieve higher levels of quality.