Reviewer: Steve
Blog: http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/

Kaizen is a Japanese word for small changes for continuous improvement. Kai means change and Zen means good. Anthony Robbins, the self-improvement guru, uses this, so does Toyota. For more info, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen.
“Kaizen and The Art of Creative Thinking” by Shigeo Shingo is a book about change, and how to making it happen. This book is designed to shake up the status-quo. It is self-help for organizations, and has much information that can be used by individuals. While the examples are from manufacturing, these principles can be used, and are being used, in many different organizations. If you are a supervisor, shift leader, manager, or a worker looking to improve work, you need to read this. If you are a business consultant and haven’t read this, shame on you!
Dr. Shigeo Shingo was a master of Kaizen and wrote a book in 1958 about creative thinking. This is his book. Shingo writes “based on my 30 years of hands-on experience of plant improvement, I developed a system called the “Scientific Thinking Mechanism.” It embodies techniques and philosophies advocated by others, such as the aforementioned Experimental Scientific Thinking, Creative Thinking, and Brainstorming methods. Although each of these methods captured a certain aspect, none of them were comprehensive. Thus, I combined the strengths of these various methods and created this Scientific Thinking Mechanism.” Some of these are Fredrick Taylor, Immanuel Kant, and W. E. Deming, well known to all college business students.
Dr. Shingo breaks down complex subjects in simple terms. He illustrates his points using humor and shop floor examples with lots of charts and illustrations to show what’s discussed and to tie these concepts together. Each one of the six chapters, Principles of Analytical Thinking, Capturing Problems, Idea Generation for Improvement, Evolution of Improvement, From Ideas to Reality, and Promoting Improvement Ideas are stuffed full of real-life examples highlighting the chapter’s points. You can actually see how The “Scientific Thinking Mechanism” came to be.
In Chapter Six, he describes the Engineer’s Instinct and the Manager’s Instinct. In the example, the change didn’t completely solve the problem, just 60% successful. The engineer’s instinct says it didn’t do 100%, so it doesn’t work. The manager’s instinct says there a savings of 40% - so more profit! Also in this chapter he describes 10 common objections to change. I hate to admit it, but I’ve used some myself. It is worthwhile to note that between 50 years and two cultures, Japanese and American, there are the same obstacles to change.
For over 20 years, The Shingo Prize for Operation Excellence is given to those organizations that meet certain standards. Please read more at http://bigblue.usu.edu/shingoprize/. To download a chapter of this book go to http://www.superfactory.com/articles/Bodek_Kaizen_Creative_Excerpt.htm.
About the Publisher:
Norman Bodek is Dr. Shingo’s American publisher, is president of PCS Press, a Vancouver, Washington, publishing, training, and consulting company. He discovered and published the works of the truly great Japanese manufacturing geniuses: Dr. Shigeo Shingo and Taiichi Ohno, the inventors of the Toyota Production System now called JIT and Lean manufacturing and many others. From his numerous trips to Japan he introduced to the western world the Kaizen Blitz, SMED, TPM, QFD, Hoshin Kanri, Poka-Yoke, Visual Factory and other new manufacturing methodologies that have helped companies improve their quality, and productivity. In 1988 he initiated the Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence with Professor Vern Buehler at Utah State University. He can be reached at http://www.pcspress.com/.

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