ABSTRACT
Shingo’s early philosophy embraced the ‘scientific management’ ideas originated by Frederick Taylor in the early part of this century. Taylor’s (1911) approach was based on what is now called the ‘economic man’ theory of motivation. Taylor’s approach was briefly reviewed in chapter 4. This approach was adopted extensively by Shingo until in his 40s he became aware of the methods of ‘Statistical Quality Control.’ He adopted these methods until in the 1970s he was ‘finally released from the spell of statistical quality control methods’ (Bendell, 1989: 12). The breakthrough in his thinking arose when he came to believe in defect prevention. This led to his major contribution to the quality debate.
