Success Through Quality: Support Guide for the Journey to Continuous Improvement

As a professional in quality improvement with 15 years of experience, I think I can say that this is perhaps the best book I've ever read to explain the field I work in. Consistent with the principles of Lean Management, it is short, simple and yet remarkably insightful, putting the ideas of Taylor, Ford, Shewhart, Deming, Juran, Ohno, Shingo etc into an easily accessible framework, stressing the points of seeing quality improvement as both an art (the importance vision) and science (how to use statistics). The most remarkable aspect of the book, however, is perhaps the integrity of the writer and how he focuses on the importance of self-improvement for the quality manager (process improver, action researcher, ...) as a strategy for improving the total organization. In this aspect, Clark tries to bridge self-improvement literature, such as "The seven habits of highly effective people", with the statistical methods of Donald Wheeler and others. Most quality managers want others to improve their processes, but often forget to eat their own medicine. Not so with Clark. His examples include personal examples of how he uses SQC for improving family finances, how he and his son improve basket ball scores, before he scales to the macro perspective of how these methods could and should be applied on the national and international level. It is a remarkable practical and visionary book.