When your product keeps planes in the air, seals Army tanks from biohazards, and enables exploration companies to drill oil and gas wells, quality control matters.

At Trelleborg Sealing Solutions in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, it’s Frank Williams’ job to pay attention to and ensure product quality. As Trelleborg’s quality manager, Williams is responsible for all aspects of the product quality equation. That’s a heavy responsibility considering that Trelleborg seals are used on virtually every aircraft flying today, including Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner, where they seal everything from flight controls to windows and doors.

Because of quality’s importance in the industry, there is an increased focus on audits to ensure that strict quality controls and procedures are in place and being followed. That was the area of one of Williams’ early challenges.

“When I first started working for the company, we had 120 procedure books in use on the [manufacturing] floor,” he explains. “Of course, when someone comes in for an audit, if they find the one book that wasn’t updated, your quality score suffers. We faced continuous challenges with document control.”

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