2006 | Page 3 of 21 | Gemba Academy

The Toyota Way is Total Company Discipline, Partial Study is GM’s Failure

By Jon Miller - November 27th, 2006

Kan Higashi was President of the NUMMI company, the joint venture between Toyota and GM, when it was started two decades ago. In the October 16, 2006 issue of Nikkei Business (a Japanese magazine) Mr. Higashi shares his insights in a s

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 33: The Difference Between Production Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering

By Jon Miller - November 26th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by saying “We think of production engineering and manufacturing engineering as distinct things. We distinguish manufacturing engineering as the work to determine the method of manufacturing and pro

Thankful but Dissatisfied

By Jon Miller - November 25th, 2006

Reflecting on this Thanksgiving holiday, I have a lot to be thankful for but I am dissatisfied. It has been a challenging year in many ways, both personally and in business. I am thankful that there are so many problems in front of me

How to Stay Out of Trouble with Mr. Convis

By Jon Miller - November 23rd, 2006

Gary Convis is the senior vice president of manufacturing in North America for Toyota Motor Corporation. In a November 20, 2006 article in the Lexington Herald-Leader titled New Tundra Plant Just Shows that … Toyota Keeps on Truc

The Water Spider: What’s in a Name?

By Jon Miller - November 22nd, 2006

One of the things that keeps Lean manufacturing from being boring to the amateur linguist is the many odd-sounding words that make up the Lean lexicon. Kamishibai Heijunka Pareto Yamazumi Takt Andon Jidoka Kaizen Pokayoke Gemba And don

What is a Kamishibai?

By Jon Miller - November 21st, 2006

I heard the term kamishibai (紙芝居) used in the context of the Toyota Production System for the first time in 2006. It was at an LEI seminar hosted by a former Toyota manager. At the time I thought it was a gratuitous use of a Japa

Dissatisfaction: The Essence of Toyota Management and the Kaizen Mindset

By Jon Miller - November 20th, 2006

I’ve said again and again that complacency and being satisfied with the current condition are anathema to kaizen. The article in Fast Company December/January 2006 issue titled “No Satisfaction” is excellent. Here are

Top 5 Things I Learned in China Last Week

By Jon Miller - November 19th, 2006

Here are the top five things learned after a productive week in China: 1. You can’t overstate the value of respecting another’s culture I gave my rudimentary Chinese a workout this time and the results were interesting. Doo

Why Six Sigma is Essential for Kaizen Success

By Jon Miller - November 18th, 2006

Genchi gembutsu means that in a Lean organization improvement must be done at the closest point to the value-adding workplace (gemba) following the scientific method based on facts. I’ve liked genchi gembutsu and management by fa

Seeing the Lean in Milton Friedman’s Ideas

By Jon Miller - November 17th, 2006

Nobel prize winner and Chicago school free market economist and author Milton Friedman has just passed away. The impact of his ideas are huge. It ranks with the impact of the ideas of Henry Ford and Taiichi Ohno. Like Ohno and Ford, Fr

Year: 2006