Systems Design

Building Systems that Drive Ideal Behavior

Brent R. Allen, April A. Bosworth, Brent R. Allen, April A. Bosworth

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000562811
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

The ground-breaking Shingo Model of 2008 introduced principles, systems, tools, and results. At that time, however, the systems element of the model did not receive the in-depth attention that other parts of the model did. As a result, organizations developed their own concept of systems. Some organizations have identified hundreds of systems and tools. In fact, the distinction between a system and a tool was not clearly defined until recently with the introduction of the Shingo SYSTEMS DESIGN workshop and the information discussed in this book.

With the development of the workshop, the Shingo Institute is now teaching the three essential systems—work, improvement, and management—as well as the five required communication tools that are necessary to improve an organization. You'll find that when these systems are formalized, they work together to help create organizational excellence.

With Systems Design: Building Systems that Drive Ideal Behavior you'll learn how to formalize the process of creating these three systems. In addition, a new tool, the Shingo system design map, is introduced. This book also details how you can improve the connections you've already made between the tools, systems, results, and principles of the Shingo Model.

1 Organizational Excellence and the Shingo Institute

DOI: 10.4324/9781003267768-1

Too many organizations are failing to be competitive, not because they cannot solve problems, but because they cannot sustain the solution. They haven’t realized that tradition supersedes tools, no matter how good they are. Success requires a sustainable shift in behaviors and culture, and that needs to be driven by a shift in the systems that motivate those behaviors.^*

—Gerhard Plenert

* Gerhard Plenert, Discover Excellence: An Overview of the Shingo Model and Its Guiding Principles (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2018), 1.

In 1988, Shigeo Shingo, a Japanese industrial engineering consultant and author, bestowed his name on the “North American Shingo Prizes for Excellence in Manufacturing.” While recognized for his genius by only a few individuals in the West, Shingo was highly regarded in Japan as a co-creator of the concepts, tools, and philosophy of the Toyota Production System (TPS). He was also the author of 18 books on the subject (Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1 Shigeo Shingo receives an honorary doctorate at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, in 1988.

Vernon Buehler, a director of Utah State University’s (USU) Partners in Business program, was an early advocate of Shingo’s teachings. It was Buehler who persuaded Shingo to accept an honorary doctorate in 1988 and to add his name to the Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing.

Shingo wanted the prizes, which were administered by the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University, to be awarded each year to organizations and academics whose work exemplified the best of Shingo’s teachings. The prizes were to be awarded in three categories: (1) large businesses of more than 500 employees, (2) small businesses of 500 or fewer employees, and (3) academics who made scholarly contributions to the body of knowledge surrounding Shingo’s work.

The mission of the Shingo Prize was, as it is today, to recognize the successful implementation of Shingo’s ideas as examples of best practices for others to follow. Shingo wanted “to give back to North America” for what he himself had learned from his “teacher’s teachers.” These included Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, William Taylor, and Henry Ford.

With a $50,000 donation from Norman Bodek, founder and former president of Productivity Press, and generous support from USU, the fledgling Shingo Prize presented its first award in 1989 at the 14th Annual Partners in Business Conference in Logan, Utah. By that time, several of Shingo’s books had been translated into English from Japanese. This afforded organizations throughout the world the benefit of his incredible tools, such as SMED (single-minute exchange of dies) and poka-yoke (mistake proofing). Perhaps even more valuable in Shingo’s teachings were his observations on human nature and development, although the latter points were largely overlooked in favor of his tools in the early days of the Shingo Prize.

By 2008, Shingo’s work and the significance of TPS beyond manufacturing became apparent to the Shingo Prize administrators. They expanded the scope of the Shingo Prize beyond North America and also made the Prize available to participants from non-manufacturing entities. The rebranded “Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence” was adopted. It included two additional significant but lesser levels of the award: the silver and bronze medallions. Around this time, Prize administrators recognized the need and responsibility to provide a deeper understanding of the conceptual and philosophical foundations of Shingo’s tools and methods, the know-why behind the know-how, as Shingo described them in his teachings.

Back to Basics

The term Lean was first introduced in 1990 in the book The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production. In it, the authors, James Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos, describe Lean as manufacturing systems that are based on the principles employed in the Toyota Production System (TPS). They wrote:

Lean … is “lean” because it uses less of everything compared with mass production—half the human effort in the factory, half the manufacturing space, half the investment in tools, half the engineering hours to develop a new product in half the time. Also, it requires keeping far less than half the inventory on site, results in many fewer defects, and produces a greater and ever-growing variety of products.^*

* Womack, J. P. et al. The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production—Toyota’s Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1990), 14.

In the intervening years, the philosophy of Lean has gone through numerous iterations. It stresses the maximization of customer value while simultaneously minimizing waste. The goal of Lean is to create increased value for customers while simultaneously utilizing fewer resources. Countless organizations have, at one time or another, begun a Lean journey or implemented an improvement initiative of some sort. At the foundation of these initiatives are a plethora of tools (over 100) that seem to promise exciting new results. They are utilized to optimize the flow of products and services throughout an entire value stream as they horizontally flow through an organization.

While many organizations may initially see significant improvements, far too many of these initiatives meet disappointing ends. Leaders quickly find that tools such as Six Sigma, SMED, 5S, and JIT are not independently capable of effecting lasting change.

The Shingo Institute

The Shingo Institute has assessed organizations in various industries around the world. The Institute has seen firsthand how some organizations have been able to sustain their improvement results, while far too many have experienced such a decline. In fact, initially, the Shingo Prize focused on tools and systems and how those tools and systems drive results. The Prize was originally given out based on these results.

But when far too many Shingo Prize recipient organizations reverted to their old ways, the Shingo Institute realized there was a big piece missing in its earlier model of organizational excellence based only on systems, tools, and short-term results. So, the Shingo Institute set out to determine the key difference between short-lived successes and sustainable results. Over time, the Institute discovered a common theme: the difference between sustainable and unsustainable effort is centered on the ability of an organization to ingrain into its culture timeless and universal principles, rather than rely on the superficial implementation of tools and programs. This is because principles help people understand the “why” behind the “how” and the “what.” Sustainable results depend upon the degree to which an organization’s culture is aligned to specific, guiding principles rather than depending solely on tools, programs, or initiatives.

The Shingo Institute discovered that what was lacking was sustained superior performance, a sustained culture of excellence and innovation, and a sustained environment for social and ecological leadership. To really make progress in a journey to organizational excellence, we must have long-term sustainability. Change could no longer be something that happened once a year during a Lean event. Instead, organizations need to constantly look for improvement opportunities.

The Shingo Model and the Shingo Prize

To best illustrate its new findings, the Shingo Institute developed the Shingo Model ^TM, the accompanying Shingo Guiding Principles, and the Three Insights of Organizational Excellence ^TM. The principles are timeless and universal. They apply to all cultures and they do not change over time. They govern consequences and provide a solid foundation for developing a roadmap to excellence.

Now, the Shingo Prize is awarded to organizations that have robust key systems driving behavior closer to ideal, as informed by the principles of organizational excellence, and measured by strong key performance indicator and key behavioral indicator trends and levels. Shingo Prize recipients show the greatest potential for sustainability as measured by the frequency, intensity, duration, scope, and role of the behaviors evident in the organizational culture. The Shingo Prize has become the global standard for organizational excellence. As an effective way to benchmark progress toward excellence, organizations throughout the world may apply and challenge for the Prize. Recipients receiving this recognition fall into three categories: Shingo Prize, the Shingo Silver Medallion, and the Shingo Bronze Medallion.

Most organizations do not wait until they believe they might qualify for the Shingo Prize to challenge for it. They challenge for the Prize so they can have a team of organizational excellence experts visit their company and evaluate their performance. They use the Shingo Model and the assessment process to measure themselves as they work toward the highest standard of excellence in the world. They use the guidelines to direct them, to inspire them, and to hold themselves responsible.

Over the years, the Shingo Institute’s scope has expanded to include various educational offerings, a focus on research, and a growing international network of Shingo Licensed Affiliates. The Shingo Model is the primary subject of the Institute’s popular workshops and publications. These materials have been developed to share throughout the world so organizations can learn how to create a sustainable cultural shift, which will ultimately lead to organizational excellence.

Similarly, volunteer Shingo examiners, who are international experts in all aspects of organizational excellence, focus on determining the degree to which the Shingo Guiding Principles are evident in the behavior of every team member in an organization. They observe behavior and the evidence of it to determine the frequency, intensity, duration, scope, and role of current behavior measured against the desired principle-based behaviors. They observe the degree to which leaders are focused on principles and culture, and the degree to which managers are focused on aligning systems to drive ideal behaviors at all levels.

The Six Shingo Workshops

As part of its educational offerings, the Shingo Institute offers a series of six workshops that are designed to help participants understand the Shingo Model, its guiding principles, and its insights. Ultimately, these workshops help participants strive for excellence within their respective organizations. Each of the workshops is described below.

DISCOVER EXCELLENCE

This foundational, two-day workshop introduces the Shingo Model, the Shingo Guiding Principles, and the Three Insights of Organizational Excellence. With active discussions and on-site learning at a host organization, this...