diff --git a/npm-shrinkwrap.readme.md b/npm-shrinkwrap.readme.md
index 59083339c9..d57ad1e930 100644
--- a/npm-shrinkwrap.readme.md
+++ b/npm-shrinkwrap.readme.md
@@ -3,16 +3,11 @@ All of our npm dependencies are locked via the `npm-shrinkwrap.json` file for th
 - our project has lots of dependencies which update at unpredictable times, so it's important that
   we update them explicitly once in a while rather than implicitly when any of us runs npm install
 - locked dependencies allow us to do reuse npm cache on travis, significantly speeding up our builds
-  (by 5min or more)  
+  (by 5 minutes or more)
 - locked dependencies allow us to detect when node_modules folder is out of date after a branch switch
   which allows us to build the project with the correct dependencies every time
 
-However npm's shrinkwrap is known to be buggy, so we need to take some extra steps to deal with this.
-The most important step is generating the npm-shrinkwrap.clean.js which is used during code reviews
-or debugging to easily review what has actually changed. 
-See https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/3581 for related npm issue. A common symptom is that the `from`
-property of various dependencies in `npm-shrinkwrap.json` "arbitrarily" changes depending on when and
-where the shrinkwrap command was run.
+We also generate `npm-shrinkwrap.clean.js` file which is used during code reviews or debugging to easily review what has actually changed without extra noise.
 
 To add a new dependency do the following:
 
@@ -20,14 +15,11 @@ To add a new dependency do the following:
    installation. This is due to an optional `fsevents` dependency that is really required on MacOS 
    to get good performance from file watching.
 2. make sure you are in sync with `upstream/master`
-3. ensure that your `node_modules` directory is not stale or poisoned by doing a clean install with 
-   `rm -rf node_modules && npm install`
+3. ensure that your `node_modules` directory is not stale by running `npm install`
 4. add a new dependency via `npm install --save-dev <packagename>`
-5. update npm-shrinkwrap.json with `npm shrinkwrap --dev`
-6. run `./tools/npm/clean-shrinkwrap.js`
-7. these steps should change 3 files: `package.json`, `npm-shrinkwrap.json` and 
-   `npm-shrinkwrap.clean.json`
-8. commit changes to these three files and you are done
+5. run `./tools/npm/reshrinkwrap`
+6. these steps should change 3 files: `package.json`, `npm-shrinkwrap.json` and `npm-shrinkwrap.clean.json`
+7. commit changes to these three files and you are done
 
 
 To update existing dependency do the following:
@@ -36,16 +28,14 @@ To update existing dependency do the following:
    installation. This is due to an optional `fsevents` dependency that is really required on MacOS 
    to get good performance from file watching.
 2. make sure you are in sync with `upstream/master`: `git fetch upstream && git rebase upstream/master`
-3. ensure that your `node_modules` directory is not stale or poisoned by doing a clean install with 
-   `rm -rf node_modules && npm install`
+3. ensure that your `node_modules` directory is not stale by running `npm install`
 4. run `npm install --save-dev <packagename>@<version|latest>` or `npm update <packagename>` to 
    update to the latest version that matches version constraint in `package.json`
-5. relock the dependencies with `npm shrinkwrap --dev`
-6. clean up the shrinkwrap file for review with `./tools/npm/clean-shrinkwrap.js`
-7. these steps should change 2 files: `npm-shrinkwrap.json` and `npm-shrinkwrap.clean.json`. 
+5. run `./tools/npm/reshrinkwrap`
+6. these steps should change 2 files: `npm-shrinkwrap.json` and `npm-shrinkwrap.clean.json`.
    Optionally if you used `npm install ...` in the first step, `package.json` might be modified as 
    well.
-8. commit changes to these three files and you are done
+7. commit changes to these three files and you are done
 
 
 To Remove an existing dependency do the following:
@@ -54,10 +44,8 @@ To Remove an existing dependency do the following:
    installation. This is due to an optional `fsevents` dependency that is really required on MacOS 
    to get good performance from file watching.
 2. make sure you are in sync with `upstream/master`: `git fetch upstream && git rebase upstream/master`
-3. ensure that your `node_modules` directory is not stale or poisoned by doing a clean install with 
-   `rm -rf node_modules && npm install`
+3. ensure that your `node_modules` directory is not stale by running `npm install`
 4. run `npm uninstall --save-dev <packagename>@<version|latest>`
-5. relock the dependencies with `npm shrinkwrap --dev`
-6. clean up the shrinkwrap file for review with `./tools/npm/clean-shrinkwrap.js`
-7. these steps should change 3 files: `npm-shrinkwrap.json` and `npm-shrinkwrap.clean.json`.
-8. commit changes to these three files and you are done
+5. run `./tools/npm/reshrinkwrap`
+6. these steps should change 3 files: `npm-shrinkwrap.json` and `npm-shrinkwrap.clean.json`.
+7. commit changes to these three files and you are done
diff --git a/tools/npm/clean-shrinkwrap.js b/tools/npm/clean-shrinkwrap.js
index 40e3cd15a9..3fd05e1c70 100755
--- a/tools/npm/clean-shrinkwrap.js
+++ b/tools/npm/clean-shrinkwrap.js
@@ -27,12 +27,12 @@ function cleanModule(moduleRecord, name) {
 }
 
 
-console.log('Reading npm-shrinkwrap.json');
+//console.log('Reading npm-shrinkwrap.json');
 var shrinkwrap = require('../../npm-shrinkwrap.json');
 
-console.log('Cleaning shrinkwrap object');
+//console.log('Cleaning shrinkwrap object');
 cleanModule(shrinkwrap, shrinkwrap.name);
 
 var cleanShrinkwrapPath = path.join(__dirname, '..', '..', 'npm-shrinkwrap.clean.json');
-console.log('Writing cleaned to', cleanShrinkwrapPath);
+console.log('writing npm-shrinkwrap.clean.json');
 fs.writeFileSync(cleanShrinkwrapPath, JSON.stringify(sorted(shrinkwrap), null, 2) + "\n");
diff --git a/tools/npm/copy-npm-shrinkwrap b/tools/npm/copy-npm-shrinkwrap
index cbc722c199..b36528ec04 100755
--- a/tools/npm/copy-npm-shrinkwrap
+++ b/tools/npm/copy-npm-shrinkwrap
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ var PROJECT_ROOT = path.join(__dirname, '../../');
 process.chdir(PROJECT_ROOT);
 
 if (fs.existsSync(NPM_SHRINKWRAP_FILE)) {
+  console.log('copying shrinkwrap fingerprint to', NPM_SHRINKWRAP_CACHED_FILE);
   fse.copySync(NPM_SHRINKWRAP_FILE, NPM_SHRINKWRAP_CACHED_FILE);
 } else {
   console.warn(`${NPM_SHRINKWRAP_FILE} not found. Copy operation will be skipped.`);
diff --git a/tools/npm/reshrinkwrap b/tools/npm/reshrinkwrap
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..b8f4c1454a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/npm/reshrinkwrap
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env node
+
+'use strict';
+
+let childProcess = require('child_process');
+
+childProcess.spawn('npm', ['shrinkwrap', '--dev'], {stdio: 'inherit'}).on('exit', (exitCode) => {
+  if (exitCode !== 0) return;
+
+  childProcess.fork('./tools/npm/clean-shrinkwrap.js').on('exit', (exitCode) => {
+    if (exitCode !== 0) return;
+
+    childProcess.fork('./tools/npm/copy-npm-shrinkwrap');
+  });
+});