Year: 2010

198 Articles
3 Soccer Balls on a green soccer field. A soccer goal in the background.

The Making of the 2010 World Cup Soccer Ball

By Ron Pereira - September 16th, 2010

I am coaching my daughter’s U7 soccer team this year and, as such, have been reading as much as I can about the game.  I was a wrestler growing up… never played soccer in my life! Anyhow, I came across this video on how th

How to Sustain a Lean Culture after 10 Years

By Jon Miller - September 15th, 2010

This week I am in Japan helping to lead one of our lean manufacturing benchmarking trips. What I took away from the debriefing from yesterday’s lean benchmarking visit was a series of lessons on how to sustain a lean culture afte

Still Learning the Meaning of Cleaning

By Jon Miller - September 14th, 2010

Just when you thought you knew all you needed to know about cleaning the workplace as part of lean manufacturing, the universe sends you a day like yesterday. We visited a small, privately held company in rural Japan. This company was

There’s Nothing Fantastic About Being Good

By Ron Pereira - September 14th, 2010

I was recently flipping through one of my favorite lean books of all time, Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management (affliliate link). I often grab this book, open it up, and randomly read a page much like I do with the Bible. You see, f

holding puzzle pieces

Energy Savings Kaizen: Switch on to Use

By Jon Miller - September 13th, 2010

This week we are leading a big group on a lean manufacturing study mission in Japan. We call it the Japan Kaikaku Experience because we learn from companies that have gone through or are still going through kaikaku , a lean business tr

Lean Manufacturing and the Brain

By Jon Miller - September 11th, 2010

This week I learned that within the three pounds of spongy flesh that is the human brain there are 1.1 trillion cells, 100 billion neurons and 10 x 10 to the millionth power of possible neuron connections. This number makes my brain hu

Here It Comes, the Lean Burrito!

By Jon Miller - September 9th, 2010

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Preparing Coffee

By Ron Pereira - September 9th, 2010

Last night, before I went to bed, I set my coffee maker up to start brewing at 5:45 AM.  I also placed my coffee mug and a spoon next to the coffee maker so I wouldn’t have to fumble about in the morning. This morning, around 6

Why Salmon Would Fail at Hoshin Kanri

By Jon Miller - September 8th, 2010

While cleaning out my pockets after a long summer of travel I found “hoshin is like salmon” on a bit of improvised note-taking paper, in my handwriting. If it was important enough to write down, the meaning of this scrawl s

A day that changed my life forever

By Ron Pereira - September 7th, 2010

It was early evening – around 7:00 PM. I was leaving the plant I was visiting that week and noticed a second shift operator preparing to start his day. I went over to say hi to the young man. He was a nice fellow… he had one of

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