An engineer and consultant whose books and training made important contributions to the spread of the Toyota Production System. From about 1955 to 1980, Shingo trained supervisors and engineers at Toyota in industrial engineering methods. His classes contributed to the establishment of internal kaizen training at Toyota and also at other companies. He also made important contributions to turnaround time reduction, introduced the term Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) and developed steps to analyze turnaround work, especially the distinction between internal and external work. 

The Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing was established in 1988 by the College of Business at Utah State University to promote awareness of Lean manufacturing concepts and to give recognition to public and private sector companies in the United States, Canada and Mexico that have come far in their implementation of Lean. 

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