October 2017 | Gemba Academy

15 Lean Failure Lessons from Software Development, 1/3

By Jon Miller - October 30th, 2017

Reading the Atlantic Monthly article The Coming Software Apocalypse helped me see the question of “Why do lean transformations fail?” in a new context. This question is usually preceded by statements like “95% of lean

I Feel Better Already

By Steve Kane - October 27th, 2017

A customer recently contacted me to let me know that business conditions had changed and he would be unable to put his Gemba Academy subscription to use. He was consumed with several business problems to solve at once and was working

GA 186 | How to Transition into Different Lean Roles with Jess Orr

By Jessica Bush - October 26th, 2017

This week’s guest is Jess Orr. Ron sat down with Jess at AME Boston to discuss her transition from working at Toyota to taking on a new role at another company. An MP3 version of this episode is available for download here. In t

Why Aliens Have Yet to Visit Earth

By Jon Miller - October 23rd, 2017

Space is big. The scale of outer space is so grand that humans can’t comprehend it. To boot, humans have difficulty with long-term thinking. This has resulted in an emerging tragedy of the commons, in orbital space. About 95% of

GA 185 | How to Use Lean to Create Value with Steve Kane

By Jessica Bush - October 19th, 2017

This week we’re sharing a keynote by our own Steve Kane, from a recent conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Steve provided some powerful perspective on what lean is really all about, and why we need it so much. An MP3 version of

How Fresh Starts Motivate Us to Keep Improving

By Jon Miller - October 16th, 2017

When a method works, it works even when we don’t understand how. If we do understand, we can find wider application for the method. So it was interesting to stumble across a human behavior called the fresh start effect as a possi

From Linear to Roundabout Thinking

By Kevin Meyer - October 13th, 2017

Ever since I visited Italy over a decade ago my inner geek has had a fascination with traffic engineering. If you’ve visited Italy, or many similar places, you probably know why. Traffic appears chaotic, thanks in part to wha

GA 184 | How to Become a Better Problem Solver with Kelly Moore

By Jessica Bush - October 12th, 2017

This week’s guest is Kelly Moore, longtime friend and customer of Gemba Academy. Ron and Kelly discussed problem solving and all the different ways you can approach it, including Toyota Kata, PDCA, and more. An MP3 version of thi

Why Don’t You Try TPS?

By Jon Miller - October 9th, 2017

“We need to improve our operation.” “Why don’t you try TPS?” “We don’t make cars.” If I had a dollar for every time a client brought up the “we don’t make cars” objection to trying to learn from the Toyota Product

The Dangers of Benchmarking Lean Exemplars

By Ron Pereira - October 6th, 2017

A common practice for folks getting started with lean is to benchmark lean exemplars in order to see what “good” looks like. In fact, there are benchmarking tours to Japan where you can visit companies like Toyota. I ac

Month: October 2017