It’s common for people who use the Shingo Model™ as a standard of excellence to talk about their organization’s “Shingo Journey” much like you hear people talk about the Lean journey. They’re talking, of course, about the evolution of their organizations toward the use of the principles prescribed by the Shingo Model. However, until now there has been no visual representation of what a Shingo Journey might look like. We recently rectified that situation with a new page on the Shingo.org website.

We began by defining three categories  of activities that ought to be included in the Shingo Journey of every organization: 1) Training, 2) Sustainment, and 3) Assessment. Training includes activities such as Shingo Workshops, study tours, etc. They are activities for both initial training on Shingo principles and also advanced training. Sustainment activities are for keeping your thinking and enthusiasm for process improvement fresh. They include attending conferences and summits where you can hear leaders and gurus talk about various topics of the Shingo Model. Finally, there is the Assessment category. This is for figuring out where you are on your Shingo Journey and what to work on next to keep moving forward. The Shingo Insight assessment falls under this category and so does the main feature for which we’re most known: the Shingo Prize.

At the bottom of the page are three samples of what typical Shingo Journeys look like. Because no two Shingo Journeys are alike, we didn’t want to give the impression that there is a prescribed order of activities an organization ought to undertake in order to take its Shingo Journey “properly.” Instead, we chose just to give three pathways an organization might take  on its Shingo Journey and none is better than either of the others.

Please visit the new Shingo Journey page to gain a better understanding of what people mean when you hear them talk about their Shingo Journey and feel free to contact us with any questions you may have on this topic.