October 2006 | Gemba Academy

Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement

By Jon Miller - October 31st, 2006

Scientist, philosopher and author David Bohm presents challenging ideas on the nature of reality. They are challenging not in that they are difficult (if you are patient with the Calculus) but in that they challenge how we perceive, th

Reflection (Hansei) is the Noblest Teacher

By Jon Miller - October 30th, 2006

Hansei is a Japanese word meaning “reflection” as in reflecting on ideas or experiences in order to learn from successes or failures to improve oneself in the future. It is a key step in kaizen, both personal improvement an

Don’t Talk to Us About Toyota

By Jon Miller - October 28th, 2006

“Don’t talk to us about Toyota” demanded a new customer recently. Their reasoning was that Toyota’s level was unachievable for them. This client does not build cars. But they were asking for world class benchmar

Continuous Improvement Video from Genie Industries

By Jon Miller - October 26th, 2006

Here is a quick follow up to yesterday’s post on 3P. Genie Industries is a local company that makes lifts. They have been doing kaizen for several years with great results. I have toured them and spoken to their continuous improv

How to Use 3P to Work Out Process Design Alternatives

By Jon Miller - October 25th, 2006

Apoorva from India asks, “Generally how many alternatives are worked out in 3P?” Production Preparation Process, or 3P as it is known, is the name used to describe the American consulting market’s understanding of the

Kaizen Suggestions at Nokia Factory in India Improve Quality

By Jon Miller - October 24th, 2006

There is an article in the Hindu Business Line on October 23, 2006 titled Smart Ideas at Work. The 3,500 workers at the Nokia factory in Chennai, India gave 1,800 kaizen ideas as part of their suggestion system. Many kaizen ideas seem

Educating People is Key to Operational Excellence

By Jon Miller - October 23rd, 2006

TPS is a system of training. These are the words from an article by Toyota on the TPS. The source escapes me at the moment, if anyone knows of it please add a comment. It’s my personal belief that the thing that sets Toyota apart

Lessons from Toyota’s IT Strategy

By Jon Miller - October 22nd, 2006

There are some interesting lessons from Toyota’s IT Strategy in the minutes from the Third IT Economics Salon of the Economic and Social Research Institute which is part of the Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government. The guest

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 32: Operational Availability vs. Rate of Operation

By Jon Miller - October 20th, 2006

In this chapter Taiichi Ohno introduces another concept that is mixed up by people. It is the difference between operational availability and rate of operation. I introduced this concept in some depth in a previous post on this blog, a

Things They Say at Toyota: Ask “Why?” Five Times

By Jon Miller - October 19th, 2006

One of the ways to judge whether a company is succeeding in their journey towards being an organization that embraces continuous improvement based on the Toyota Production System model is how often people ask “why?” as part

Month: October 2006