Introduction. Shigeo Shingo contributed to tools such as Total Quality Management, Just in Time, Flow, SMED, Quality at Source, Genchi Genbutsu, and Lean. He along with Taiichi Ohno applied his concepts to the real world in Toyota. Over the years, management gave a greater emphasis to these tools, i.e the “How” losing out on the important “Why”. The Shingo Model has been put together to link the “How” to the “Why”. It gives the relationship between principles, systems, tools, and results.
The Shingo Model is a step towards a culture of operational excellence. It helps an organization to imbibe a culture of operational excellence by aligning its systems with principles rather than focussing on the tools. The model has guiding principles and the transformational process.
The Shingo Model validates the teaching of Stephen R. Covey who said that values govern our actions but principles govern the consequence of our actions. It validates the fact that principles predict outcomes. Rather than focusing on the tools, it focuses on the underlying principles that operate behind them. It requires the leaders to anchor the mission, vision, and values of the organization to the principle of operational excellence and then for the entire organization to do so.
Dimensions of Operational Excellence
The Shingo Model has four dimensions viz. Cultural enablers, Continuous process improvement, Enterprise alignment, and Results. In order to see the potential of these principles and the business outcomes, all these four dimensions are important and require focus. These four dimensions cover five business areas, viz customer relations, product or service development, operations, supply, and admin. Each of these dimensions has some guiding principles and supporting concepts. Supporting concepts are important but not universal as the principles.
Culture. Sustainable results require keeping the culture as central to the guiding principles, systems, and tools. It does not come through the “know-how”, just the use of tools and techniques but through the “know-why”, the principles behind their use. The leader needs to first experiment and imbibe the principle and then teach the principle to their team. This would empower the team to be take initiative and be creative and move in the right direction.
Aligning the Systems with Principles. A bad system will have a large variation in behavior, leading to a variation in outcomes. The Shingo Model helps an organization to align every system with the principles. By doing this, the behavior of their staff is influenced towards the ideal.
Tools. Since the guiding principles which form the culture of the organization are aligned with the systems, the staff will be able to better understand the why behind the use of the tools.
Reference
The Shingo Model for Operational Excellence, Jon M Huntsman School of Business , Utah State University.