This volume considers each of the 14 principles put forth in W. Edwards Deming's book Out of the Crisis (1982), which was written in response to the challenging of US dominance in goods and services by Japan. Micklewright states that a crisis occurred in low quality, high costs, and low competitiveness and notes that American companies are experiencing other crises in the present by not following Deming's principles, such as the recession, outsourcing, the credit meltdown, healthcare, and Social Security. He analyzes how practices and tools such as quality circles, total quality management, zero defects, benchmarking, balanced scorecard, reengineering, ISO 9001, Six Sigma, and lean support do or do not support Deming's principles, and how following the principles is the key to success. Micklewright, who is associated with a company that integrates lean and quality and helps company executives understand the right principles to support continuous improvement activities, has produced several training videos and provides presentations in which he impersonates Deming. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Read Less