Juran on leadership for quality

The subject of management for quality has undergone rapid and drastic change as a result of competition in the marketplace and the vulnerability of industrialized societies that depend heavily on the quality of goods and services. In this companion volume to his acclaimed Juran on Planning for Quality, J.M. Juran provides top-level managers with the specific, field-tested methods they need to successfully lead their companies on the quest for superior quality. Managers have long recognized that the most sound response to a competitive challenge is to become more competitive. Today, informed managers also realize that quality improvement is the best source of competitive advantage. They know that return on investment in quality improvement projects is among the highest available. Yet, the means by which management can supply the leadership necessary to attain quality goals remains elusive. J.M. Juran has drawn on the experiences of thousands of chief executives in companies around the world to create a clear plan of action applicable to any industry, whether service or manufacturing. The famous "Juran Trilogy," clearly presented step-by-step, shows how to apply the familiar business concepts of planning, control, and improvement to quality leadership. For each concept, Dr. Juran provides a succinct and proven series of actions. He gives criteria for selecting project-by-project improvements and mobilizing a team to carry them out. He also describes a realistic timetable of implementation and directs the formation of an ongoing quality council whose job is to launch, coordinate, and "institutionalize" annual quality improvement. The membership of this council, as Dr. Juran insists, must come from the ranks of senior managers the stakes are too high for upper managers not to personally become the leaders and members of this vital council. Using real-world case examples of highly profitable quality improvements in such companies as Bethlehem Steel and Florida Power & Light, Dr. Juran illustrates how to guide a company into a continuing steep rate of improvement. The key, as Dr. Juran emphasizes, is that quality must be implemented from the top down. This essential handbook makes executive leadership the key to a company's quality revolution -- and to producing the real cost benefits over both the short and long run that superior quality brings.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.