MBN USA
April 20, 2021
AQS’ cost-effective process helps clients manage inventory control
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By Monica Stavish Skaggs
Hard work, a solid
entrepreneurial spirit — and a few sleepless nights — are essential to success
if you ask Brittany Stovall, co-founder and CEO of Assured Quality Systems LLC.
Those strengths illustrate the enthusiasm she and co-founder and chief financial
officer Paulina Sandoval bring to their certified women-owned minority business
enterprise.
AQS is a risk management
firm delivering quality assurance and technology solutions through ISO
9001-certified inspections, inventory staging, engineering support and Internet
of Things, or IoT, to original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, and Tier I
suppliers including Adient, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Toyota and Lear. The
company solves complex OEM and Tier I challenges for manufacturers in 18 states
and Mexico.
Formed in 2013, AQS is the
south’s largest women- and minority-owned risk management provider. The company
has grown from eight employees — mostly friends and family — to over 300, with
offices in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas, and Detroit, Michigan. Its vision:
Give manufacturers a systematic process to ensure manufacturing quality.
It’s all about customer
support and a quality experience, Stovall said. That meant some sleepless
nights in the early days as the company was getting off the ground.
“We work to understand our
customers’ needs,” she said. “We always ask them what they need and what
technologies we can acquire to help them. We’re a millennial-based company, and
we’re not afraid to grow. We are always looking to evolve as a company.”
For example, the COVID-19
pandemic veered AQS into new territory. Recognizing the acute need for personal
protective equipment among customers, Stovall and Sandoval took on new services
to provide gloves, masks and hand sanitizers to clients, including all Major League
Baseball teams.
AQS is also on the cutting
edge with manufacturers as they develop in the autonomous driving era, which
enables a vehicle’s automation to sense its environment and provide assistance
to prevent human error.
“We help manufacturers
manage their production and inventory control,” said Stovall, who began her
career at General Motors Co. in Arlington, Texas, as a technical representative
with TRW Automotive Holdings Corp., now ZF Friedrichshafen AG. “For example, we
ask the question: ‘Is there an opportunity to rework a part to make it
useable?’”
Go-getter attitudes
Stovall and Sandoval were
in their mid-20s when they were introduced to each other by a colleague, Danny
White — now a consultant with AQS in Tennessee.
“Paulina had experience in
containment, and I had experience in engineering,” Stovall said. “[White] said,
‘You could be a quality assurance company.’”
Sandoval drove from Dallas
to San Antonio to meet Stovall, and it was love at first sight as business
partners.
“You never know who you’re
going to meet in life,” Stovall added. “Danny is a white male, I’m African
American and Paulina is Hispanic. He would always say, ‘Don’t ever think you
can’t be a success.’ He’s been our biggest cheerleader.”
Named to Dallas Business
Journal’s 40 Under 40 Awards in 2020, she credits her parents with instilling
her with a strong work ethic.
“My parents were
entrepreneurs, so it’s in my blood, and it organically grew from there. My dad
was in landscaping, and my mom was in interior design,” Stovall said. “They
were always doers, and they set the bar very high. I learned it takes hard
work.”
Sandoval also has a
go-getter attitude. Her American dream began in her youth when her family
immigrated to the United States from the state of Michoacán, Mexico, so she
could receive life-saving cardiac procedures and treatments.
Both women share their
success by giving back to the community and working with the disadvantaged.
It’s all about having the right attitude and helping others achieve, Stovall
said.
“I believe you can truly do what you want, if you apply discipline,” she said. “I think everybody has the ability to do whatever they want, if they apply themselves.”
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