August 2009 | Page 2 of 3

Lean Thinker Interview with Chris Schrandt

By Jon Miller - August 19th, 2009

It is our pleasure to bring you the Lean Thinker Interview series from Gemba Academy. Over the following months we will feature people with interesting insights and stories to share about their experience learning and applying lean. In

The Versatile Leader – Part 1

By Ron Pereira - August 18th, 2009

There’s one thing I know for sure… being a leader of people is hard work. No matter if the “people” are those you work with or your children at home… knowing how to best inspire and move them to greatness is no easy task.

Review of Toyota Supply Chain Management by Iyer, Seshadri and Vasher

By Jon Miller - August 18th, 2009

Toyota Supply Chain Management by Ananth Iyer, Sridhar Seshadri and Roy Vasher is a valuable book that will be of interest to the students and practitioners of supply chain management or the Toyota Production System. This book takes ma

Why Should I Mark My Cupboards!?

By Jon Miller - August 17th, 2009

Ronak has been successful with 5S in the factory but is facing challenges with 5S in the office. He said in a follow-up to the post on 5S guidelines for the office: “Only problem is in personalized cabins, where there are lots of

Ambiguous Visual Controls… this one’s pretty clear actually

By Jon Miller - August 13th, 2009

I waited and waited but didn’t catch sight of any humped zebras making a run for it. I bet their crossing frequency plots out as a histograms with a bimodal distribution.

5S Guidelines for the Office

By Jon Miller - August 12th, 2009

Jonathan asked: “Hi Jon, Recently, I was tasked to head a 5S project here in our department (Purchasing) but I have limited knowledge on what is applicable and what should be implemented. I was thinking that some guidelines could

Free 7 Deadly Wastes Overview Video (Spanish Subtitles)

By Ron Pereira - August 11th, 2009

We’ve been unbelievably busy over at Gemba Academy the last few months. We continue to develop new content (we’re now up to 44 videos, 28 interactive quizzes, 28 PDF summary documents, and much more) and most recently our t

One Point Lesson: Takt Image

By Jon Miller - August 10th, 2009

John asked: What is the difference between Takt Time and Takt Image? Takt time is the calculated pace of production based on the average speed at which the customer is buying a product or service. The formula is net available time to p

If Lean Is So Great, Why Is Toyota Struggling?

By Ron Pereira - August 9th, 2009

Balaji, a reader of LSS Academy, recently sent me the following question/comment via email: Toyota, GM, and Ford are experts in state of the art assembly technology and in implementing Lean and Six Sigma process improvement methods and

Management Improvement Carnival #72

By Jon Miller - August 8th, 2009

John Hunter over at Curious Cat Management Improvement blog has asked me to guest host an episode of the Management Improvement Carnival. Kudos to John for having done 71 of these over the past several years. Here are my choice of arti

Month: August 2009