August 2006 | Page 2 of 3

Kaizen Song: Ship It

By Jon Miller - August 16th, 2006

I’m running low on these. I do recall thinking this one was almost too easy. Enjoy. Ship It (to the music of “Whip It” by Devo) Track that WIP If you want the parts to ship Parts on the rack Some of them are scrap When takt time

This Is An Experiment

By Jon Miller - August 15th, 2006

A few weeks ago when I returned to our office after having been on the road for several weeks there were some big changes. The entire layout of the office had been flipped from one side to the other. This is not so hard to do since we

Lean Healthcare Plumbs New Depths at ?? Hospital

By Jon Miller - August 14th, 2006

The news from Jean’s workplace, where consultants have been giving Lean healthcare a bad name, has gotten worse. Jean writes: I think we, as a staff are beginning to feel like chicken pluckers in the Golden Plump Place where Fast

How Can American Government Meet Its Productivity Challenge?

By Jon Miller - August 13th, 2006

So asks a white paper by the same tile by the folks at global management consulting giant McKinsey & Company. The white paper cites an interesting statistic. The 2005 U.S. federal budget outlay was 20.3% of the GDP of the United S

I Mean It. Be Dissatisfied in the Work You Do

By Jon Miller - August 12th, 2006

Reader Jeff made a good point in a comment he left a end of one of the articles here at Panta Rei. I suggested replacing “Take pride in the work you do” signs in the workplace with “Be dissatisfied in the work you do&

Visit Got Boondoggle? for the 10 Lessons to Kaizen the Kaizen

By Jon Miller - August 11th, 2006

There’s a great post and invaluable advice on how to kaizen the kaizen event from Mike Wroblewski at the Got Boondoggle? blog today. Mike was happy with the results from a kaizen event at an aerospace firm in Indiana, where his k

Top 3 Ways Kaizen Events Enable Culture Change

By Jon Miller - August 9th, 2006

“What is your approach to culture change?” we are often asked when clients are first getting to know us. It’s always tempting to pull out a PowerPoint presentation and go through our 12-Step Program for Culture Change

Kaizen in Software Development: Start by Seeing the 7 Wastes

By Jon Miller - August 8th, 2006

It’s worth repeating time and time again that what makes an organization Lean is not whether they have implemented the methodologies, tools and procedures that people recognize as part of the Toyota Production System model. In ot

Learning Lessons from Big Mistakes

By Jon Miller - August 7th, 2006

I made a big mistake last week. Apologies were made. Lessons were learned. Errors in judgment are revealing mistakes to learn from, since in your your state of mind at the time you were not in error. The kaizen philosophy requires that

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 29: Become a Reliable Boss

By Jon Miller - August 4th, 2006

“I never get angry at the workers. However, I will get very angry at supervisors and above.” Some people say that Taiichi Ohno was not a very nice man. Ohno had a reputation for being very tough on his students, and some ev

Month: August 2006