Consultants
Hideki Kawazoe
Hideki Kawazoe is a Senior Consultant at Shingijutsu Global Consulting, with more than 40 years of experience in manufacturing operations, production preparation, and quality management based on the Toyota Production System (TPS). He began his consulting activities in 2025, following a long career within Toyota Group manufacturing companies.
He joined Toyota Auto Body Co., Ltd. in 1981 and was initially assigned to the Manufacturing Department at the Fujimatsu Plant, where he worked as a production engineer in sheet metal and assembly processes. His early responsibilities included mass-production quality control, new model production preparation, TPM office activities, and participation in TPS initiatives.
From the early 1990s, he played a key role in the launch preparation of the Inabe Plant, contributing from the initial planning stage through the start of mass production. He later served as Section Manager of the Body Department, where he promoted safety, cost control, delivery performance, and quality management, while actively advancing cost reduction and Kaizen activities through participation in Toyota Autonomous Study Groups.
In 2005, he transferred to the Yoshiwara Plant shortly after its integration following the merger with Araco Corporation. As a department head in the Assembly Department, he was responsible for the launch of the new Land Cruiser model. He led productivity improvement initiatives to ensure safety, quality, cost, and delivery performance in mass production, and addressed numerous challenges associated with new product launches through structured problem-solving and QC methodologies.
From 2015 to 2025, he served as an Executive Officer at Gifu Auto Body Industry Co., Ltd., where he was responsible for production transfer preparation for the Coaster vehicle line and contributed to the successful launch of additional vehicle models. In parallel, he served for over ten years as an instructor for quality management programs at the Chubu Quality Control Association.
Throughout his career, his manufacturing improvement efforts have emphasized the two core pillars of TPS—Jidoka (automation with a human touch) and Just-in-Time (JIT)—with a strong focus on production readiness, process control, quality assurance, policy deployment (QCDS), and shop-floor Kaizen.