By: Bruce Hamilton, President, GBMP There is a popular lore provided by Shigeo Shingo that the original name for mistake-proofing (poka-yoke) was “fool-proofing” (baka-yoke). Shingo chided managers at Panasonic for using the latter term, as it was disrespectful to workers, essentially calling them fools. Shingo substituted the word “fool” for “mistake,” because, as he aptly noted, […]
By: Mark Baker Mark Baker will be teaching the Discover Shingo Model™ Workshop at the 28th International Conference this April When I was a young mechanical engineer at Honda Motor Company, Mr. Honda was still alive and he used to always say, “Unless we have 100% of the people in the organization engaged in making the company better, […]
By: Rajinder Singh, Solving Efeso As a child, I remember vividly playing in my grandfather’s workshop that was used to repair and re-tread used, worn and damaged truck and bus tires. As we ran in and out of the workshop we saw employees working hard on different processes – buffing, loading and unloading, assembling, etc. – […]
By: Rick Edgemen Part 1: Hoshin Kanri – Concept Origins Published March 1, 2016 Prior to World War II, the U.S. share of the world export market was approximately 30%. In the aftermath of World War II that share grew to more than 70% – a result of a generally healthy and educated workforce, as […]
By: Alejandro Ponce, Alfra-Opex After serving 14 years at a company dedicated to saving lives, by building reliable safety systems for automobiles such as seat belts and airbags, it is clear that quality is the top priority when we talk about product performance. There is no room for mistakes. With only one chance for those products […]
Project succeeded? About a year ago, the head of logistics and purchasing asked me to carry out some observations on the floor. Their new ERP system had been implemented about two years ago, and he wanted to know where knowledge was still lacking so he could use the information as input for a training plan. […]
By: Peter Hines, S A Partners Think for a minute: What would happen if you went to the supermarket but forgot to pick up the kids from school? What would happen if you bought a round of drinks in a bar for all but one of your party? What would happen if […]
By Dr. Patricia Gabow and Ken Snyder The article, “Medical Taylorism,”[1] by Pamela Hartzband, M.D. and Jerome Groopman, M.D., in the New England Journal of Medicine, reflects a major misunderstanding of the principles and practice of the Toyota Production System, or Lean as it is often called. Specifically, the article appears to conflate poor implementation […]
By: J Francisco Ramirez R, LENSYS The best decisions are made when there is awareness and knowledge of the different elements of a system, as well as how these elements are interconnected and what the outputs of the system are. Systemic thinking is a Shingo Guiding Principle that ties together all other principles. Thinking systemically […]
