posted 13 June 1999 04:49 AM               

Thanks for everyone's response. To serve and share with the list, You find the consolidated responses below. I hope it helps someone else, as well as me.

Robert Drensek
Quality Engineer
RNAV@aol.COM

R. King, "Hoshin Planning: The Developmental Approach"i Methuen. MA; Goal/QPC Publishers, 1969.

Dr. Witcher and I co-manage a internet forum addressing issues on "hoshin kanri". Information on the forum is found on the following URL
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/hoshin-kanri /

and the following URL leads to other sources of information, including listing of reading materials on the topic itself.
http://www.mgt.uea.ac.uk/research/hoshin/hkbiblio.htm

1) It is a while since I did a literature search myself on this subject, but when I did, the best book that I found was: "Hoshin Kanri: Policy Deployment for Successful TQM" by Yoji Akao, Editor. Productivity Press. (207 pages) This is detailed and authoritative, with a many examples and illustrations drawn from real-life companies.

2) If you want a simple but accurate introduction to the subject (e.g. for instructional purposes), you can obtain an article on our website. http://www.dhutton.com/visitors.html I hope that this helps.

Total Quality Engineering (www.tqe.com) have a very good software application of Hoshin Kanri in easy way instead to use a lot of forms as original Japanese Method. This software is calling Hoshin planing and they have a downloadble free trial software of about 12 Mb, valid for 30 days. You will need to have available Winzip and Access installed in your PC to run this worth Demo.

Adittionally TQE have a Hoshin Handbook with a brief details about this method.