Productivity Europe was founded by Malcolm Jones and Norman Bodek in 1989, three years after they first met.  Norman was president of Productivity Inc which he founded in 1979 to study Japanese productivity improvement processes and bring them to the USA.  In 1981 Norman took his first trip to Japan, visiting Toyota and meeting Shigeo Shingo.  Shingo's book on Toyota was the only English material available to Norman, although the English was a very bad Japanese-English translation.  Norman brought Shingo's book, and later, Shingo back to the USA and began his publishing company, Productivity Press and his consulting company, Productivity Inc.

Malcolm came across Shingo's books and Norman in 1986 and when Shingo visited the UK in 1988 and 1989 Malcolm hosted his visits.  Shingo died in 1991, but Malcolm subsequently worked with his protegy, Shigehiro Nakamura, a Total Productivity consultant with the Japan Management Association, and developed Productivity Europe.  Norman retired at the end of the 1990's and sold the Productivity companies, which are currently management owned. Norman is now once again active in the field of Productivity improvement, focusing on employee involvement approaches.  Malcolm is Managing Director of Productivity Europe Ltd.