August 2007 | Page 3 of 5

Six Sigma Control Phase is Not Anti-Lean

By Ron Pereira - August 16th, 2007

Last night I posted a question and now realize I was a bit too vague. This question was brought on due to a recent conversation I had with someone who asked me if I thought the “control” phase in the six sigma DMAIC road

45 Ways to Strengthen Kaizen Habits

By Jon Miller - August 16th, 2007

I have a suspicion that personal productivity bloggers are actually moonlighting Lean people. The 27 great tips to keep your life organized at Zen Habits contain advice familiar to us as one piece flow, bias for action, “zeroR

Is the Six Sigma Control Phase Anti-Lean?

By Ron Pereira - August 15th, 2007

Here is a question for you. Do you feel the Six Sigma “control” phase, the last in the DMAIC roadmap, is anti-lean in any manner? I will share my thoughts soon but am interested in hearing what others think first.

Road Trips, Bad Directions & Going to Gemba

By Jon Miller - August 15th, 2007

Thanks for telling us your lean failure stories, Andrea, Allison and Brad. You are all winners. E-mail or call us us with your mailing address and we’ll send you a prize. Speaking of things that can ruin a road trip as well as a

Totally Swamped

By Ron Pereira - August 14th, 2007

I am totally swamped this week with training a room full of folks about six sigma. Anyhow I am totally exhausted right now… was planning on starting an MSA (measurement systems analysis) series but will need to hold off for a w

5S Know How from the Last Century

By Jon Miller - August 13th, 2007

We are going through a fairly thorough 5S exercise of our server. Just over 22GB of files were red tagged last week. Of the few items that were salvaged from the red tag folder was a series of notes by Brad Schmidt, President of Gemba

CEO Of Toy Manufacturing Company Commits Suicide

By Ron Pereira - August 13th, 2007

Today I read an article over on Industry Week that troubled me for much of the day. Most of us have heard of all the recent issues coming out of China related to quality and safety. One of the major stories was related to the paint

A Bureaucracy Which Enables Kaizen

By Jon Miller - August 12th, 2007

The organizational characteristics of the Toyota Production System have been described as the combination of rigid and scripted rules with a high degree of flexibility to respond and change as needed. Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis. The

Words from a Motley Fool Genius

By Ron Pereira - August 12th, 2007

I have not blogged on the whole Nardelli taking over Chrysler topic mainly because so many people already have and I have grown bored of the topic… that was until I read this article on The Motley Fool. The article takes the m

Learning to Swim

By Ron Pereira - August 10th, 2007

My 2.5 year old daughter hit a major milestone last night. She swam by herself with no life jacket. She and her older sister (5 years old) took swim lessons earlier in the summer. My 5 year old caught on during the lessons and w

Month: August 2007