February 2009 | Page 2 of 3

Smiling, Laughing, and Blow-out Diapers

By Ron Pereira - February 17th, 2009

A friend, who’ll stay nameless since it involves a family member of his, recently told the story of how his 8 month old child threw-up on him, smiled, laughed and then had a blow-out diaper. How’s that for imagery? Well, my fri

Free Introduction to Lean Manufacturing Video

By Jon Miller - February 17th, 2009

This is the first video from Gemba Academy. We will create both free content and subscription-based content with interactive content and guides you can download to check your learning. This 10-minute video is on YouTube. Please visit w

10 Ways that Kaizen Develops Better Leaders

By Jon Miller - February 15th, 2009

Here are ten ways that kaizen develops better leaders. #1 Attention The leader well-heeled in kaizen notices the small things and is bothered by them if they seem abnormal. They pay attention to details. #2 Vision The practice of kaize

Gemba Academy: Improvement Learning, Improved

By Ron Pereira - February 14th, 2009

Let me start with three words: passionate, ecstatic and enthralled. Passionate is the perfect word to describe how I feel about continuous improvement. While ecstatic best describes my joy at being able to share some exciting news with

7 Ways to Reduce Energy Cost

By Jon Miller - February 13th, 2009

Earlier this week Ron Pereira wrote about 7 ways to reduce costs at the Lean Six Sigma Academy blog. He ht a nerve and kicked up quite storm of more than a dozen comments when he suggested that frequent flyer miles be saved by the comp

Genchi Genbutsu: Do You Really Understand It?

By Ron Pereira - February 13th, 2009

If you’ve read this blog – or really any other lean related publication – you’ve likely heard the phrase genchi genbutsu used many times. “Data is of course important in manufacturing, but I place the greatest emp

The Lean Workplace as Classroom

By Jon Miller - February 12th, 2009

The the Harvard Business Review article Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System Kent Bowen and Steven Spear describe Toyota as a “community of scientists” based on the their approach to management. Specifically, th

Is Pottery Barn Lean?

By Ron Pereira - February 11th, 2009

We’ve had the same couch for about 8 years. I love it. It’s one of those huge sectionals with the “captain’s chair” in the middle. I’ve watched my Buckeyes win a National Championship while sitting on this couch. I’ve als

Where Did Value Stream Mapping Come From?

By Jon Miller - February 10th, 2009

Harish Jose asked about value stream mapping: Is this “tool” used and abused by lean manufacturing practitioners? Why is this tool not explained in Ohno, Monden or Shingo’s books? Shingo does talk about the process an

Celebrating Over 500 Years of Lean Thinking

By Jon Miller - February 9th, 2009

Since 1997 the Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org) has helped to popularize and spread lean thinking worldwide through book publishing, seminars, conferences and many other ways. LEI has been especially generous in sharing

Month: February 2009