Executives associated with Danaher describe the Danaher Business System (DBS) emerging in the mid-to-late 1980s, using kaizen (continuous improvement) and related lean practices to improve acquired businesses. Instead of treating lean as a one-time project, Danaher built it into how leaders managed performance. This created a large, repeatable market for hands-on lean coaching and training.
A major MIT study of global auto manufacturing was published as The Machine That Changed the World. It helped popularize the term “lean production” and described Toyota-style methods in a way many Western managers could understand. This created demand for hands-on Japanese expertise beyond what books alone could provide.
TBM Consulting Group (later known as TBM Consulting) was founded in 1991, reflecting the growing U.S. market for structured lean transformation support. Firms like TBM helped translate Japanese-origin methods into U.S. plant environments and management routines. This helped extend Shingijutsu-style approaches through partnerships and local consulting capacity.
During a crisis period at Porsche, production leader Wendelin Wiedeking brought in Japanese consultants to push major changes in shop-floor practices. The goal was to cut waste like excess inventory and rework by changing how work was organized and how problems were solved. This set the stage for a high-profile European example of importing Toyota-style methods.
Shingijutsu’s public materials describe founder Chihiro Nakao as a long-time Toyota Group veteran trained in Toyota Production System (TPS) thinking and practices. This background mattered because Shingijutsu marketed itself as “TPS in practice,” delivered by former Toyota experts rather than by outside theorists. The consultancy’s identity as a “sensei-led” group helped it attract overseas clients seeking rapid, on-site change.
Lean Enterprise Institute accounts of Wiremold’s transformation note ongoing work with kaizen experts from Japan’s Shingijutsu and its U.S. affiliate TBM. The emphasis was on repeated kaizen events—short, focused workshops to redesign work and remove waste—rather than slow, purely analytical programs. This period helped demonstrate that “TPS-style” shop-floor change could deliver sustained results in a North American industrial company.
Wendelin Wiedeking became Porsche’s chief executive during the company’s turnaround period. Lean-focused factory reforms and supplier improvement work were part of the broader effort to stabilize the business and improve competitiveness. The success of this turnaround later made Porsche a widely cited lean case in Europe.
Wiremold’s lean transformation later received a Shingo Prize (1999), which helped validate results achieved through intensive kaizen and TPS-aligned practice. External recognition mattered because it provided a visible, third-party signal that factory performance improvements were real and sustained. This helped make Shingijutsu-linked methods more credible to other Western manufacturers.
Shingijutsu Global’s public messaging frames the firm as part of the group that “brought lean out of Japan,” emphasizing TPS-based, on-site kaizen consulting and training. This reflects how the consultancy marketed its role in exporting TPS practices during the late 20th century. By highlighting field coaching and culture-building, it reinforced an implementation-focused model of lean transfer.
From roughly 1970–2000, Shingijutsu-style “sensei” coaching helped spread hands-on TPS practices into Western factories through intensive kaizen workshops and shop-floor redesign. By the early 2000s, the market increasingly included larger consultancies and Toyota-linked corporate consulting organizations, which broadened the reach but also standardized the offering. The overall outcome was a durable global pathway for TPS ideas: taught not just as theory, but as a repeatable, coached method for changing daily work.
Reports on Porsche’s turnaround describe dramatic reductions in inventory and improvements in productivity and quality after the early-1990s reforms. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Porsche case was frequently referenced as proof that lean methods could work in a low-volume, premium manufacturer. This visibility reinforced demand for “TPS practitioner” consultants in Europe and beyond.
Toyota Engineering Corporation, established in 2002, positioned itself as a specialized TPS kaizen consulting firm. Its formation signaled a shift: TPS know-how was increasingly offered through formal corporate consulting channels, not only through small groups of former Toyota experts. This changed the competitive landscape for earlier pioneers exporting TPS practices.
Shingijutsu consultancy's export of TPS practices (1970–2000)