By Norman Bodek
This article is from the Superfactory Archives, an archive of content from the Superfactory website that existed from 1997 to 2012.
The reason I am involved in this discussion, and I find it fun and challenging, is that I knew Mr. Taiichi Ohno and Dr. Shigeo Shingo. I was the publisher for both of them. I treasure and respect highly the participation of both these great masters and I don’t believe it is it fair to denigrate the memory of either one of them. They are not here to defend themselves. I gather my perspective from knowing both Mr. Ohno and Dr. Shingo and from many of the Toyota managers that worked with them for many years.
Maybe, just maybe, my illustrious advisories in this discussion are slightly misperceiving the real importance of Dr. Shingo’s participation in the discovery of the Toyota Production System (TPS) / Just-in-time (JIT). Without Dr. Shingo’s ability to write, teach and express his unique knowledge of the Toyota Production System we in the West would probably be at least ten more years behind Toyota. Toyota seems to be very willing to share information with the West today. This was not the case twenty five to thirty years ago. When I first met Mr. Taiichi Ohno in the early 1980’s, I asked him if he had anything in writing for me to see. He said, “Norman, we do not write it down at Toyota because it is always changing.” This confused me, but now in retrospect I know that he was only reluctant to share that which was giving Toyota a competitive position in the World.
I first met and heard Mr. Ohno and Dr. Shingo at a Japan Management Conference at the New Otani Hotel in Tokyo. Both were keynote speakers and both were given equal status. When I subsequently asked Mr. Taiichi Ohno, “How did you discover the Toyota Production System?” His answer was, “I read Henry Ford’s book Today and Tomorrow.” Yes, he attributed his basic knowledge not to Mr. Toyoda but to Henry Ford.
In Ohno’s own words quoted in the journal Management published by Japan Management Association (JMA), in June 1976. “Since we also wanted maintenance to be done during working hours, we began to study the question of how setup changes could be performed in a very short period of time. Shigeo Shingo, of the Japan Management Association, was advocating “single-minute setup changes” and we felt that this concept could be of great service to us.” Dr. Shingo left JMA in 1959. And it was in 1955 that Dr. Shingo took charge of industrial engineering training at Toyota. (Maybe Isao Kato is as confused as I am.)
Mr Kato also says at the end his recent article “There is simply no person in Toyota Motor Corporation that thinks Mr. Shingo invented TPS even those who value and respect his courses and teachings as much as I do. I would like these facts made clear for the record.” I think that Mr. Kato should talk to Mr. Toyoda, the former chairman at Toyota, who said a few years back in China that “if it wasn’t for the work of Dr. Shingo, Toyota would not be where it is today!” But, who am I to argue with the chairman of Toyota.
To correct a misperception I would like to define first what TPS really is and why Dr. Shingo deserves credit as a co-creator. TPS might consist of various tools such as Kanban, Andon, Jidoka but TPS is fundamentally a new way of looking at manufacturing not just as a set of tools. TPS focuses on improving the overall process from the customer’s demands to the delivery of the product. Prior to TPS, manufacturing companies were filled with smoke stakes, operational centers separated by machine types: the stamping machines, lathes, drilling, milling etc. each producing mountains of inventory taking weeks even months to produce an automobile. TPS focused on eliminating the wastes created by these separate machine centers. TPS primarily focuses on improving the overall process as opposed to the old way of improving the efficiency of each operational center without consideration of the overall flow.
Here is where Dr. Shingo’s brilliance comes into play. Dr. Shingo early on recognized the distinction between operation and process. It was as if operation was on the X-Axis and process was on the Y-Axis. Sure products are produced by operations, machines, and Western manufacturing focused on maximizing the efficiency of each machine center (keep those machines running!) not on the overall efficiency of the entire process. Dr. Shingo understood the distinction of this dichotomy and taught the 3000 engineers and supervisors at Toyota to improve not only the operational centers but to improve the overall efficiency of the process. The result of this improvement was one-piece flow, kanban, etc. He was a process improvement expert. Look at his P-course outline, as presented by Mr. Kato, and you will see his constant attention to Kaizen, continuous improvement of the process.
Yes, Shingo did not invent Kanban, Jidoka, or Andon but he did conceptionally conceive ways to improve the overall process. I don’t believe Toyota allowed any other consultant to teach close to 3000 people, if there was no real value, as they did Dr. Shingo. Toyota is known as the Scotland of Japan and Mr. Ohno especially would not waste money.
Dr. Shingo lost some favor with Toyota for he did teach what Toyota was doing to thousands of other managers at other companies, and in difference to Mr. Kato there are many other super efficient plants in Japan outside of Toyota taught by Dr. Shingo; just visit the Matsushita washing machine plant in Shizuoka. (I have had the privilege of visiting 250 plants in Japan.) If you just read Dr. Shingo’s “green book,” The Study of the Toyota Production System from an Engineering Viewpoint, you will see the extent of Dr. Shingo’s knowledge of Toyota. How in the world could he have had such extensive knowledge of the Toyota system, from just teaching a class; remember there were no published books at the time on the subject. He not only taught the class but he was on the factory floor solving problems both at Toyota and at all of their top tier suppliers. Also, I don’t think Toyota liked Dr. Shingo publishing that “green book.”
It is funny, but I was introduced to Dr. Shingo in 1981 by Mr. Ohta plant manager at Nippondenso, one of Toyota’s top tier suppliers. He worked with Dr. Shingo for over 10 years. And I do repeat often what Mr. Iwata and Mr. Nakao said to me when I asked, “Who invented JIT, Ohno or Shingo,” and there answer was, “who came first the chicken or the egg.” Both of them started Shingujitsu, introducing the Kaizen Blitz to the West and both of them worked with Mr. Ohno and Dr. Shingo for fifteen years. Mr. Iwata was Mr, Ohno’s executive assistant when Mr. Ohno was chairman at Toyota Gosei.
Yes, Dr. Shingo did give Mr. Ohno the credit for inventing JIT. I believe that this is a Japanese way of being humble, just as Mr. Ohno credited Henry Ford.
I do hope we can carry in our hearts and minds the gratitude to both these amazing men who have benefited the world so greatly. Just imagine where we would be today without them.
Norman Bodek, who started Productivity Press and published over 100 Japanese books in English, is currently president of PCS Press, and author of Kaikaku the Power and Magic of Lean and the co-author with William Waddell of Rebirth of American Industry. Noman also recently published JIT IS FLOW by Mr. Hirano and Mr. Furuya.