Insightful Quality: Beyond Continuous Improvement

In order to survive and attain market leadership, organizations must engage in longer-term strategic quality activities to address radical, paradigm-shifting improvements that affect the organization and its competitive position. This requires a different way of thinking and acting by leaders and managers that is known as insightful thinking.

This book can show you how to achieve this kind of success. It is about how to think insightfully about quality and to increase the creativity, innovation, and agility of an organization and its employees. Quality must be addressed in strategic as well as operational terms in order for organizations to compete effectively over the long term. Strategic quality management requires insightful leadership.

The second edition updates the case discussions about real organizations that illustrate the main points of the book. It challenges leaders and managers to adopt a new way of thinking and presents thought-provoking ideas about how organizations can begin the process of charting their own paths to insight and lasting success.

Dr. Victor (Vic) Sower is distinguished professor emeritus of operations management at Sam Houston State University (SHSU). He taught courses in operations management, quality management, technology and innovation management, and supply chain management, and established the Sower Business Technology Laboratory. He earned numerous awards for his teaching and research including the SHSU university-wide excellence in teaching award, the excellence in research award, the excellence in service award, and was named a Piper Professor in 2005 by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation of Texas. He also is president emeritus at Sower & Associates, LLC.

Dr. Frank Fair is distinguished emeritus professor of philosophy at Sam Houston State University (SHSU). Frank has won the SHSU university-wide excellence in teaching award and was named a Piper Professor in 2011 by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation. His teaching credits included an honors seminar on decision-making, and he was the principal investigator on the Socrates in the schools project.