Not the OP but I'd say no. Fundamentally software quality issues are organization and people issues. This might sounds a little nasty but what do you think of

Not the OP but I'd say no. Fundamentally software quality issues are organization and people issues. This might sounds a little nasty but what do you think of organizations where the person managing software people is a mechanical engineer, with very little experience, who thinks he should go through all the code base to "understand the state of the code". I would say that's not the kind of organization that produces quality software. If you want to improve the software quality, invest in your software team. Work on the people- not on the code base. By your own description you're not the kind of person who should be leading the technical aspect, if you can't grow someone in the team to that role then hire someone to help with that. In terms of your other idea, more automated testing, the answer to that is almost always a yes. But again, get your team there.