Blog Articles
What Would Shingo Do?
January 12, 2022 – Drew Dillon
“You know my methods. Apply them!” —Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle. 1902. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter. 1. Pretty much the first thing I ever heard Shigeo Shingo say was that we in the West were getting some fundamental things disastrously wrong. Shingo had been invited to speak at the Yale School of Management...
Read Full ArticleLeaders Cast a Long Shadow
December 2, 2021 – Dr. Laszlo A. Magyar
It is likely that all of us have gained some positive and negative experiences of how our supervisors' behavior has impacted our engagement at work. Intuitively, we presume that the way leaders act affects employee engagement. While evidence for the relationship between leadership behavior and organizational culture has been established b...
Read Full ArticleLeveraging Your Crisis Muscles With the Shingo Guiding Principles
November 8, 2021 – Ken Segel, Managing Director, Value Capture
At several periods during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during successive waves of rising infection rates, organizations in many sectors have gone into crisis operations mode to them get through. For many, their crisis operations structure addressed not only the needs made urgent by the crisis but also exposed the profound unmet needs...
Read Full ArticleCulture: The Heart of the Shingo Model
October 4, 2021 – Peter Hines, Shingo Faculty Fellow
The Shingo Model has had a profound effect on many organizations. I have visited many successful sites around the world that have well-implemented Lean programs. But what differentiates the few really fantastic organizations is the feeling around me when I’m there. I sense it in people’s smiles, their tone of voice and body lang...
Read Full ArticleThe Face We See Least Often: An Experience with Shigeo Shingo
September 1, 2021 – Bruce Hamilton, President, GBMP In May 1989, my company, United Electric Controls, received a surprise visit from Shigeo Shingo. I had just returned from attending the Partners in Business Conference at Utah State University where Shingo had presided over the first annual Shingo Prize award. United Electric Controls had applied for the prize but had not been recognized that year so receiving a visit from the Prize’s namesake was an inspiring consolation. Shingo’s improvement systems like SMED and Poka-Yoke had substantially bolstered our business performance at United Electric. But more fundamentally, his relentless impatience with the status quo, as expressed in his writings, had also become a part of our company’s culture. The idea of turning dissatisfaction with current conditions into many small changes for the better was a natural for us. Shingo phrases like “the worst waste is the one we do not see” motivated our journey as an army of previously invisible front-line team members were transformed to improvement stars through Shingo’s influence. Now, we were all beyond excited at the prospect of showing our handiwork to the master. On the day of Shingo’s visit, team members lined the entryway and applauded Shingo in recognition of the impact his writing had on our company. Smiling broadly in acknowledgement, Dr. Shingo asked to go directly to the floor. We understood from his publisher that Shingo would have only one hour to spend with us, so we’d prepared a tour route to enable him to see several of our best improvement examples. What happened at our first stop was classic Shigeo Shingo, just as if it were scripted from one of his books. Confined to a wheelchair, Dr. Shingo was wheeled over to observe a staking operation in our factory. He watched intently as foreman Harvey C. demonstrated the quick-change press used to stake two parts together. Shingo commented in English, “Very good,” showing approval to Harvey. He then reverted to his first language, requesting through his interpreter that he be given the parts that comprised the assembly. As Dr. Shingo rolled the parts in his hand, Harvey explained, “The two dots on each of the parts line up,” alluding to a visual mark for the proper loading of parts to the press. Shingo responded through his interpreter, “It’s hard to find the mark on the parts. You should put these parts in a magazine, pre-oriented for correct assembly.” Shingo then turned to me to further explain. He said, “Punching is the function here, not fumbling with parts to determine which end is up.” Aha! We chuckled nervously and thanked Dr. Shingo for his observation. Shingo then turned back to Harvey and encouraged him through his interpreter, “So keep doing Kaizen.” In a glance, Dr. Shingo had applauded our improvement to the staking press, but then recast it as the status quo and recommended even more improvement. That was his message to us. We showed him what we thought was our best, but he reminded us that every improved condition is also the new status quo. For Dr. Shingo, there was always something more to improve if we would only see it. Or, as he said, “The face we see least often is our own.”
In May 1989, my company, United Electric Controls, received a surprise visit from Shigeo Shingo. I had just returned from attending the Partners in Business Conference at Utah State University where Shingo had presided over the first annual Shingo Prize award. United Electric Controls had applied for the prize but had not been recognized ...
Read Full ArticleFocus on the Process Before Focusing on the Operations
March 5, 2021 – Ken Snyder
This is probably the single most common topic in the 17 books written by Shigeo Shingo. Even though the idea of one-piece flow has been around for many decades, leaders continue to purchase equipment to do multiple operations in big batches. Shingo argued repeatedly that small equipment designed for one operation on one product at a time ...
Read Full ArticleSeek Perfection
January 7, 2021 – Bruce Hamilton, President, GBMP
Seek Perfection is the FlywheelDefined by the Shingo Institute as “an aspiration not likely to be achieved but the pursuit of which creates a mindset and culture of continuous improvement,” Seek Perfection is the flywheel to endless daily improvement to goods and service to the customer. But the concept of perfection is elusive. For great...
Read Full ArticleHow Happy Employees Create Happy Customers
December 17, 2020 – Peter De Clerck and Dorothée Laire
As Doug Conant, CEO of Campbell’s, once said: “To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.” Having an engaged workforce is key to deal with accelerated growth, a large transformation, a merger or trying to stay ahead of competition. All organizations face a common challenge: coping with an ever-increasing pressu...
Read Full ArticleShingo Guiding Principle: Lead with Humility
December 7, 2020 – John Quirke
Lead with Humility:For me, this is one of the most critical principles within the Shingo Model for leaders to grasp at a core, personal level. The power contained within this principle is, I believe, the source of real cultural change within organizations. Leaders, particularly in the technical and compliance-based environments ...
Read Full ArticleShingo Guiding Principle: Improve Flow & Pull
September 9, 2020 – HKPO
Flow and pull are at the heart of the Toyota Production System, incorporating the entire supply chain from the vendor’s vendor to the customer’s customer. The focus is on creating value for all, including customers, marketing, production and operations, logistics, vendors, etc. Toyota measures the time from when the order for raw material...
Read Full ArticleCreative Testing Solutions (CTS): Onboarding Newly Acquired Labs Using Continuous Improvement Practices
May 14, 2020 – the Shingo Institute
“Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before.” –Shigeo Shingo “It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” –Charles Darwin EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Creative Testing Solutions (CTS) is the largest nonprofit blood donor testing labo...
Read Full ArticleCOVID-19 – Jaguar Land Rover Lends Community Support
May 13, 2020 – Ken Snyder
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is one of the largest private-sector employers in the UK, and as such, JLR has a huge impact on the UK economy. We are also pleased with the partnership between JLR and the Shingo Institute and our affiliates. JLR has hosted site visits and sent hundreds of employees to Shingo training workshops. Nigel Blenkinsop, ...
Read Full ArticleCOVID-19 – Mobilizing an Army of Discover Financial Call Center Workers
April 24, 2020 – Ken Snyder
Last year, I had the opportunity to attend a Shingo workshop in Ogden, Utah, with a group of management team members from the Utah-based operations center of Discover Financial. These leaders shared with me some of the progress they were making using the principles of the Shingo Model in their organization. They didn’t suspect at the time...
Read Full ArticleCOVID-19 – Rapid Deployment in Healthcare
April 22, 2020 – Ken Snyder
I have the privilege of serving on the board of directors of Catalysis, the Lean Healthcare Network. There are several Lean healthcare executives who serve on the board with me, including Dr. Lisa Yerian, who is the chief medical improvement officer at Cleveland Clinic. In our recent board conference call, Dr. Yerian shared how t...
Read Full ArticleCOVID-19 – Ipsen Signes Fixes a Bad Situation
April 20, 2020 – Ken Snyder
Ipsen is a global specialty-driven biopharmaceutical company committed to providing medical solutions for targeted debilitating diseases. It produces medicines for patients with very specific, life-threatening illnesses. Because running out of medicine can be deadly to patients, a motto of Ipsen is to “never stock out.” Last year, the Ips...
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