Shingo Prize recognizes six for research excellence

The Shingo Research Prize Award will be presented to the authors of five books and one unpublished journal article during the 19th annual Shingo Prize conference and awards ceremony, to be held March 26-29 at the Hyatt Regency Riverfront in Jacksonville, Fla.

The Shingo Research Prize had 21 applicants this year. They included workbooks, papers, Web sites and DVDs addressing technique, lean software development, training within industry, leadership, culture and management processes.

This year's Shingo Research Prize recipients in the Books Category are the following:

“Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise: Developing Competitive Capabilities and Managing Profit”, by Thomas Jackson. This book explains how you can implement, identify and manage the critical relationships among your markets, design characteristics, production systems and personnel to satisfy your customers and beat your competition. Through implementing the mechanics of hoshin kanri, you can systematically improve your brand equity, implement lean manufacturing and integrate your suppliers into a lean organization.

“Inside the Mind of Toyota: Management Principles for Enduring Growth”, by Satoshi Hino. This book examines the fundamental thinking and management structures that underlie the creation of the famed Toyota Production System. Hino presents a fresh and detailed analysis of Toyota's essential management system, where the goal is not simply to mimic Toyota's formula, but to learn from it and, in doing so, surpass it.

“Lean Software Strategies: Proven Techniques for Managers and Developers”, by Peter Middleton and James Sutton. The authors show how the most advanced concepts of lean production can be applied to software development and how current software development practices are inadequate. Middleton and Sutton draw on their personal experiences, as well as research on various software companies applying lean production to software development programs.

“The Toyota Product Development System: Integrating People, Process and Technology”, by James Morgan and Jeff Liker. Based on years of research, the book organizes Toyota's high-powered product development system into 13 fundamental principles, provides in-depth analysis of Toyota's process, presents numerous real world examples and tools, and proposes a model of lean product development that can be applied in all industries.

“The TWI Workbook: Essential Skills for Supervisors”, by Patrick Graupp and Robert Wrona. This workbook helps teach how to apply a four-step method for the three most essential tasks people in management positions must perform: Job Instruction, Job Methods and Job Relations. The workbook uses plain language and simple illustrations to describe each detail of the step-by-step approach to the three respective programs. It transcribes the TWI Manuals of the Department of Defense into a much more user-friendly workbook.

The Shingo Research Prize recipient in the Unpublished Article Category is:

“Lean Dilemma: Choose System Principles or Management Controls – Not Both”, by H. Johnson. An unpublished journal article, this paper explains that despite enormous attention paid to Toyota's "lean" practices in recent years, no business has achieved Toyota's long-term business results. This paper traces that failure to a difference between how managers believe a business produces its results and how businesses actually do achieve those results. The author challenges conventional cost accounting thinking, including activity-based costing, and causes the reader to think deeply.

The Shingo Prize was established in 1988 to promote an awareness of lean manufacturing concepts and to recognize companies that achieve world-class status. The Shingo Business Prize has been called the "Nobel Prize of Manufacturing" by Business Week. The Shingo Research Prize recognizes and promotes outstanding research and writing regarding new knowledge and understanding of manufacturing consistent with the philosophy of the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing. The Shingo Prize program is a non-profit organization administered by the College of Business at Utah State University.