Shingijutsu

This is a tricky entry. There is a lot of corporate politics, personal opinion, and vague memories that go into it. This consulting group, however, is important to the development of Lean in the US, so deserves a place in this list.

A bit of background. In the rapid growth days of Lean in the late 1990’s, Shingijutsu was a prominent consulting group in the Lean community. They were exclusively Japanese consultants who operated with translators.

Because of the history of Lean having originated in Toyota, there was a mystique about using Japanese consultants to really drive home learning points. They were quite effective at helping companies make large gains. I took copious notes when working with them, and even used many of those lessons in articles. (17 Lessons I Learned from Japanese Consultants). It is fair to say that this company had a large role in my personal development as a Lean thinker.

Part of the reason for their effectiveness, and I couch this with a disclaimer that I heard these stories second hand a very long time ago, was that the big three in the company, Niwa, Nakao, and Iwata, traced their professional lineage back to Taiichi Ohno and the early days of Toyota’s development of its production system.

Now, the office politics…

Mr. Iwata died in 2001, and a rift formed between two groups of the company’s consultants, based on differing visions of where the company should go. Shingijutsu as I knew it split, with Niwa and Iwata’s family forming an independent company. Nakao continued with his own company.

While they are less prominent in the Lean community now, many current Lean thinkers formed many of their core beliefs about Lean from Shingijutsu consultants.

Shingijutsu’s most commonly used service is facilitation for kaizen events. Learn about these high-payoff projects from our Lean Training System video.