Articles

Lean Manufacturing and Firm Performance Awarded the Shingo Research Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: Dominic BriaShingo InstitutePhone: +1.435.797.0771Email: [email protected]“Lean manufacturing and firm performance” by Rosemary Fullerton, Frances Kennedy, and Sally Widener Receives Shingo Research Award Summary: After trained examiners and accomplished business professionals performed a thorough assessme...

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Should We Change the Model?

Over the past several months, I have analyzed and discussed the Shingo Model™ on this blog and in private meetings with thought leaders. This has led to a lot of feedback from various people – both in response to Shingo blog posts, to my personal LinkedIn account, and in one-on-one conversations. I deeply appreciate the passion and c...

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Shingo Faculty Fellows

In order to help the Shingo Institute accomplish its educational mission, the Shingo institute is in need of expanding its resources in the educational field. We decided to create a group of people, known as “Shingo Faculty Fellows,” who will represent the Shingo Institute in educational settings. The Shingo Faculty Fellows will be a reso...

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The Holy Grail?

A few months ago, I spoke with an investment fund manager who invests in companies that practice Lean operational excellence. Both this fund manager and I shared our belief that Lean companies will outperform the general market, and will provide a better return to investors. This fund manager made the comment that if we could prove in an ...

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A First for the Eastern European Union

I am pleased to announce that the Thermo Fisher Scientific facility in Vilnius, Lithuania will receive the Shingo Prize at our annual conference next April in Orlando, Florida. This is the first organization in the central and eastern part of the European Union to receive Shingo recognition.  The Lithuanian facility has world-clas...

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Process Improvement Technique from a 7-Time Olympic Medalist

We do our best to bring a wide variety of great speakers to the Shingo Conference and we’ve managed to get some great ones over the years. One of the keynote speakers on the agenda for the 30th Shingo Conference is one you might not expect. She will bring a unique perspective to the topic of process improvement as someone who has spent he...

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The First Special Issue

When we hired Dr. Rick Edgeman as the director of research at the Shingo institute, he and I discussed how we could improve the process of improvement. I wrote about how critical it is to engage the research community in this effort in my February 2017 blog, “Improving Improvement.” With Rick’s vast experience in the academic world, he su...

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A Dream Come True

This past week I taught the first Shingo Discover Excellence workshop ever taught in Japan. And the opportunity to do it in an American organization that has a majority Japanese workforce was particularly enjoyable. The organization requested that the workshop be delivered in both English and Japanese, and the participants were roughly 50...

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Striving for Enterprise Excellence in Auckland Council Pools and Leisure

A Plan for All Aucklanders / TE MAHERE A TĀMAKI MAKAURAU – MĀ TE KATOA O TĀMAKI MAKAURAU The Auckland Plan is the strategy to make Auckland an even better place than it is now, and create the world’s most livable city. It shows how Auckland will prepare for the additional one million people they  may have to accommodate by 20...

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Shingo Principles + Gritty Resilience = Sustaining a Learning and Improvement Culture in a Healthcare System

“It’s hard work,” Dr. Richard Shannon, Executive Vice President of Health Affairs at the University of Virginia Health System, recently told the audience of healthcare leaders and performance improvement professionals at the Bay Area Performance Improvement Network (BAPIN) executive summit in Oakland, California.  “You have to be res...

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The Routledge Companion to Lean Management Awarded the Shingo Research Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Dominic Bria Shingo Institute Phone: 1.435.797.0771 Email: [email protected]   “The Routledge Companion to Lean Management” by Torbjørn Netland and Daryl Powell Receive Shingo Research Award   Summary: After trained examiners and accomplished business professionals performed a thorough assessment...

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Employee Survey Pitfalls

Employee surveys can be useful tools that show organizations where gaps exist between employee perceptions and those of managers and leadership. There are several kinds of employee surveys available to leaders who want to measure various attitudes and perceptions their employees might hold. There are surveys that measure employee engageme...

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Create Constancy of Purpose

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, we will never be able to realize our true potential.” I remember hearing this for the first time, and over the years I have found i...

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Hoshin Kanri: Translating “Big Vision” from Strategy to Execution

Part 1: Hoshin Kanri – Concept Origins 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 well as a U.S. infrastructure that remained largely untouched by the war. In contra...

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24 Elements of Successful Organizational Change

In this survey, we asked executives about 24 practical actions most important to the successful implementation of an organizational transformation. Below are the specific actions in order of their impact (from greatest to least) on the likelihood of a transformation’s success, according to the results. 1. Senior managers communicate op...

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