This from the 5/23/04 USA Today:

"Toyota's North American manufacturing chief, Art Niimi, says suppliers here
deliver 500 defective parts per million vs. 15 in Japan"

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/...kers-eye_x.htm

Generally a factory which has a higher level of defects in it's incoming
parts also ends up with more problem and/or marginal products being shipped
to the end customer.

It sure would be interesting to see the internal data Honda, Toyota and
Nissan have on this issue.

John