July 2010 | Gemba Academy

The Purpose of Lean

By Jon Miller - July 31st, 2010

I think the purpose of lean is to get better at choosing good over evil. Most of us understand that lean requires us to choose value over waste, good over bad, and better over good. But to what end? How do we judge what is value and wh

The Importance of the Storefront in Lean Manufacturing

By Jon Miller - July 25th, 2010

A little while ago P Cunningham asked: “What is a storefront and how can it help my lean manufacturing system be more flexible?” I haven’t found a reference to a “storefront” as such in any lean sources. S

What Motivates?

By Ron Pereira - July 23rd, 2010

If you are reading this via email or RSS, you may need to click through to the website to see the video.

How to Determine Cycle Time, Takt Time, Lead Time

By Ron Pereira - July 20th, 2010

Vaibhav, a reader of Gemba Academy’s blog, emailed us the following question. Can you please help me understand the definitions for the following terms? Cycle Time Manufacturing Lead Time TAKT Time Inventory Turns Your help to c

Multiple Grey spheres with one red sphere in the cluster representing an abnormality

5S Isn’t About Cleaning, Straightening, or Standardization

By Ron Pereira - July 19th, 2010

Quick question for you… what’s the true purpose of 5S (or 6S)? Go ahead and answer in your head or out loud. Now, if you’re close enough to some colleagues ask them the same question. Go on, I’ll wait. Great. Now that we have s

New Video Training for the 7 QC (Quality Control) Tools

By Jon Miller - July 17th, 2010

Some say “lean reduces waste, six sigma reduces variation” but this is a misconception. Both aim to reduce waste and both rely on a variety of common sense tools and sophisticated statistical methods to improve quality and

Kaizen Song: (SWIP Can’t Be) Zero

By Jon Miller - July 13th, 2010

Tony asked in a comment to an article about how to calculate standard work in process (standard WIP): Can I ask you a question: Standard WIP = One piece flow? No Tony, the two are not the same. The minimum necessary amount of stock to

Igor Stravinsky Agrees: Standards Enable Creativity

By Jon Miller - July 12th, 2010

There is a stereotype of the creative person who chafes at standards related to how their work is performed, to the point of eschewing any sort of process-driven continuous improvement approach. This creative person can be a designer,

Toyota Turns the Clock Back a Decade to Improve Quality

By Jon Miller - July 9th, 2010

What do you get when you mix 1,000 engineers, four weeks of additional product development lead time and reduced reliance on outsourced engineering by 67%? In most product development departments this would get a decision maker

Visualizing the Water Level

By Jon Miller - July 8th, 2010

One of the simplest and most powerful visual controls is the horizontal line. Placed strategically above a stack of inventory, across a graph plotting daily quality performance or even to indicate a safe height clearance for vehicles,

Month: July 2010