June 2006 | Gemba Academy

Gemba Keiei Chapter 27: We Can Still Do a Lot More Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 30th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno starts the chapter with the surprising statement “We have done a lot of rationalization on the production floor and we are near the limit. It’s becoming common sense that administrative processes still need a lot of ra

The Top 10 Reasons to Start Lean Office and Lean Manufacturing at the Same Time

By Jon Miller - June 27th, 2006

Most manufacturing organizations start their Lean journey on the factory floor first. Many soon recognize that meaningful, lasting improvement is only possible if Lean principles are also applied to administrative processes that suppor

Kaizen Song: I Stop the Line

By Jon Miller - June 26th, 2006

It’s a very busy week, no time to blog today. So I’ll post another one of the kaizen songs I wrote back in the days when I had a lot more time on my hands. Please enjoy this musical interlude. I Stop the Line (To Johnny Cas

Credit Suisse Does Gemba Research

By Jon Miller - June 25th, 2006

An article in this month’s Fast Company magazine asks Talk to Our Customers? Are You Crazy? The approach Credit Suisse is taking to understand the problems with their products and processes is basically research by going to the g

Gemba Keiei Chapter 26: There Are No Supervisors at the Administrative Gemba

By Jon Miller - June 22nd, 2006

“Administrative work is done at the gemba just the same as the production gemba where we make things. The office is the administrative gemba.” Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter. Gemba is a Japanese word meaning “actual place”. In

How Toyota Uses Information Technology (IT) for Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 21st, 2006

There is a staggering amount of good material being printed these days in the Japanese press about kaizen, the Toyota Production System and issues of manufacturing and business competitiveness. I just wish I had more time to read the m

Trying Out Herman Miller’s New Cubicle: Not for the Lean Office

By Jon Miller - June 20th, 2006

Herman Miller is credited for introducing the original cubicle. Instead of recognizing poor design and listening to the voice of customer, they have designed a better cube or according to designer Douglas Ball “an environment tha

Doing More with Less in the Lean Office

By Jon Miller - June 19th, 2006

“An increasing number of local companies are shrinking their employees’ work spaces” begins an article in the Puget Sound Business Journal titled Offices Getting Smaller. Well known firms in our neighborhood including

Do Heijunka with Your Kaizen Efforts

By Jon Miller - June 18th, 2006

Last week we performed an assessment at a tier one automobile manufacturer. This company has done some Lean manufacturing activities. Due to a large number of new product launches at the moment, kaizen activity appeared to us to be at

Toyota Feels the Heat from Hyundai

By Jon Miller - June 17th, 2006

The Autoblog is always good for some emotional point-counterpoint when it comes to the fates and doings of the automobile manufacturers in the United States. Today’s post titled Toyota to suppliers: don’t sell to Hyundai pr

Month: June 2006