True Product and Process Excellence Versus Fake Quality and Gimmicks

This book exposes the fallacies, dangers, coercion, and delusions of trendy quality standard and business management gimmicks and the damage American industry is suffering because of them.
This book examines the history of the quality management movement in the context of the history of American engineering and manufacturing. It explains at a fundamental level what the word, quality, really has historically been used to mean and shows how the current usage of the word has undercut the effectiveness and prestige of the core function activities to which the word, quality, is now being applied. The book thoroughly explains what professional knowledge and activities are required to produce engineered products with the safety, performance, and reliability characteristics customers associate with excellence, and distinguishes that from quality system jargon and management gimmicks. Much attention is given to explaining how certification to a Quality Management System standard can have negative consequences for a company. For situations where there is no real option to not be certified, guidance is provided on how to obtain and maintain ISO QMS certification in a way that minimizes the damage to company operations from such certification. The book explains how to use quality management system standards to benefit the company operation, rather than harm it. Common internal abuses of QMS procedures are documented and ways of preventing them explained.
This book provides business owners and managers with the intellectual amunition needed to prevent a company from wasting investors money on trendy gimmicks.
The author counsels businesses to keep financial resources concentrated on enhancing and strengthening the company's core business functions instead of expending scarce resources on expensive trendy and politically correct process add-ons.