Shigeo Shingo

Shigeo Shingo was a Japanese industrial engineer who was considered as the world’s leading expert on manufacturing practices and the Toyota Production System. He was born in 1909 in Saga City, Japan, where he attended the Saga Technical High School. He studied at the Yamanashi Technical College and graduated as an engineer in 1930. He worked as a technician for the Taipei Railway Company and then as a production manager for the Amano Manufacturing Plant in Yokohama. He joined the Japan Management Association in 1945 and became a consultant focused on the improvement of factory management. He worked with several companies, including Toyo Ind. (now Mazda) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and developed his concepts of process analysis, motion analysis, and time study. In 1955, he began a long association with Toyota, where he taught industrial engineering courses and helped to implement the Toyota Production System. He introduced the techniques of Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), Poka-yoke (mistake-proofing), and Zero Quality Control (ZQC), which aimed to reduce waste, defects, and setup times in manufacturing processes. He also developed the P-Course, a training program on the fundamental techniques of analysis and improvement of the operational activities in factories. He wrote several books on his methods, such as Study of the Toyota Production System, Non-Stock Production, and Zero Quality Control. He also lectured and consulted in the USA and Europe, where he met Norman Bodek, an American entrepreneur and founder of Productivity Inc. Bodek translated and published Shingo's books in English and brought him to the USA to teach and promote his ideas. Shingo's work influenced the development of lean manufacturing and lean thinking in the West. He received many awards and honors for his contributions, such as the Deming Prize, the Nihon Keizai Press Prize, the Blue Ribbon Medal, and the Order of the Sacred Treasure. Utah State University recognized Shingo for his lifetime accomplishments and created the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence, which recognizes world-class, lean organizations and operational excellence. Shingo died in 1990 in Tokyo, Japan, of heart failure. He was 81 years old.