2007 | Page 8 of 45 | Gemba Academy

Push, Pull, Paper Clips & Problem Solving

By Jon Miller - September 18th, 2007

The Toyota Production System, or what we call sometimes call Lean management, is simply the practice of planning, trying out your plan, reflecting (hansei) on what worked and what did not work and making adjustments through problem sol

Keep Your Kanban Cards Close to Your Genbutsu

By Jon Miller - September 17th, 2007

The primary function of a kanban card is to provide information about production instructions. Kanban cards contain information about where to produce and transport a particular product, when and in what quantity. For information to be

The Push vs. Pull Diversion Diversion

By Jon Miller - September 16th, 2007

I’m still scratching my head over an IndustryWeek article titled The Great Push vs. Pull Diversion by By Edward S. Pound and Mark L. Spearman of Factory Physics, consultants and writers of one of my favorite Lean books. They stat

The Secret Lives of Toyota Term Employees, Episode 3

By Jon Miller - September 14th, 2007

The Road to Tahara Prison A Toyota term employee and blogger named Maruo wrote 72 posts over 4 months on his experience working at the Tahara plant. His blog is called Welcome to Tahara Prison (田原刑務所へようこそ). He signe

What Are You Building?

By Jon Miller - September 13th, 2007

For those of us who are in manufacturers, or in some way involved in making things or helping others make things, we think in terms of what we build, the materials, tools and processes we use. How would you answer if you were asked

Change Leadership, Not Change Management

By Jon Miller - September 12th, 2007

The Hithchhiker’s Guide to Lean is one of the top 10 books on Lean thinking and a must read. We’ve never done a proper, full book review of Jamie Flinchbaugh and Andy Carlino’s book. This is not that full review, but

Calculating Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY)

By Ron Pereira - September 12th, 2007

One of the most powerful operational metrics I know of is Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY). It’s used to assess the “true” yield of a given process. This includes what we often call the “hidden factory” t

Awareness of a Problem Does Not Mean Much

By Jon Miller - September 11th, 2007

Reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been thought provoking. It is a book about the impact of the highly improbable events on our lives and on history, and why humans do not forsee such Black Swan events. There are many

Hope for Chrysler

By Jon Miller - September 9th, 2007

My hope for Chrysler is that Jim Press can act as a consensus builder and not a heroic, problem solving executive. What Chrysler doesn’t need is a wave of Toyota Production System implementation in their factories or a dose of To

Six Sigma in Japan

By Ron Pereira - September 9th, 2007

Here is a question I honestly don’t know the answer to. Do companies in Japan use Six Sigma? When I say Six Sigma I am referring to someone following the standard DMAIC roadmap in attempts to reduce variation, defects, etc.

Year: 2007