Jon Miller, Author at Gemba Academy

The Importance of Being Columbo

By Jon Miller - June 26th, 2011

During the 1970s I shared one experience in common with Taiichi Ohno. We both watched Colombo on television, dubbed in Japanese. In fact this is something I share with possibly a hundred million Japanese people, so it only goes to show

The COPQ Iceberg

By Jon Miller - June 25th, 2011

S.M Junaid is the Production Manager of Procon Engineering Pvt (LTD) from Karachi, Pakistan. He periodically shares kaizen examples with us. His previous contributions can be found here and also here. Today’s kaizen example is ti

Dunbar’s Number, Span of Control and Lean Organization Design

By Jon Miller - June 21st, 2011

A few weeks ago I learned about something called Dunbar’s Number while listening to the radio. The relevance of Dunbar’s number to lean organization design struck me immediately. There are such things as magic numbers. Some

Kaizen Stories from Masaaki Imai

By Jon Miller - June 17th, 2011

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting with Masaaki Imai,the founder of our company Kaizen Institute Consulting Group. Most people know him as the author of his influential books. 1975 Never Take Yes for an Answer: An Inside Look at

Suggestion Box Visual Mistake Proofing

By Jon Miller - June 14th, 2011

This suggestion box was placed in one of the walkways within the airport in Basel, Switzerland. It caught my eye because of the clever use of plexi glass to make the contents of the box visible. Making the contents of the box visible l

Understanding Lean through a Systems Theory of Safety

By Jon Miller - June 13th, 2011

Prof. Nancy Leveson is an expert in the safety of systems. She is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. She created the STAMP approach (Systems Theoretic Accident Model) and has written a book on systems theory applied to s

Lean Maturity and the Four Stages of Competence

By Jon Miller - May 27th, 2011

People often ask how good or bad they are compared to best in class lean organizations. Not satisfied with answers of “there is no end on the journey”, they want to know how far along they are. This is a fair question, and

Three Requirements for Managing by Fact

By Jon Miller - May 20th, 2011

Management by fact is a pillar principle of kaizen and lean thinking. We must go see, observe without prejudice, approach problems rationally and with data, finally take the logical actions that will result in a better outcome. Yet the

Why You Should Go See for Yourself

By Jon Miller - May 14th, 2011

One of the pillar principles of kaizen and lean management is genchi genbutsu – literally “actual place actual thing” but often translated as “go see for yourself”. One of the first things a lean sensei wi

Something to Lighten Your Day

By Jon Miller - May 12th, 2011

Many advertising images are designed to make people subconsciously want to consume a product. How effective do you think this vending machine is towards that end? There is an implied lesson here about visual controls and lean thinking

Gemba Academy Releases Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Video

By Jon Miller - May 10th, 2011

We are happy to announce the release of the newest online lean training course focused on Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) from Gemba Academy. This course features Mike Wroblewski, a Gemba consultant with the Kaizen Institute, record

The Ambiguity Deepens…

By Jon Miller - May 1st, 2011

This was found in Frankfurt airport, hanging every 100m or so in the hallway of the terminal. It’s a long narrow hallway. These signs are positioned such that if you are walking down the hall, the visual control indicates to go r

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Too Much Information

By Jon Miller - April 27th, 2011

Among the side benefits of international travel are meeting interesting new people, learning about the local culture and running into ambiguous visual controls. Jet lag slows the brain and renders it unable to quickly find meaning in a

Hearing Taiichi Ohno's Voice

By Jon Miller - April 15th, 2011

Many of us have read the words of Taiichi Ohno and learned from his teachings. Relatively few of us have heard his voice and even fewer have met him directly. I unearthed a gem during one of my recent efforts to organize my work, and I

Review of Total Flow Management by Euclides Coimbra

By Jon Miller - April 12th, 2011

Total Flow Management: Achieving Excellence with Kaizen and Lean Supply Chains was published in early 2009 but has been distributed only within Kaizen Institute and its customers. Now this book is available to all and will surely join

Lean Leadership Lessons from Lantech (video)

By Jon Miller - March 30th, 2011

Our friend Paul Akers from FastCap recently visited Lantech, a leading lean manufacturer of wrapping and packaging machines. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, Lantech has become a benchmark company that often invites visitors to share in

How to Do Yokoten

By Jon Miller - March 21st, 2011

Much of the work I do today with Gemba Academy is to share knowledge by developing online learning. We develop video library, blog posts, podcasts and other resources to help organizations learn, copy and adapt best available knowledge

Leader Standard Work Overview Video

By Jon Miller - March 18th, 2011

We have released the Leader Standard Work online training course at Gemba Academy. Currently there are seven modules in which Mike Wroblewski teaches how leaders at all levels can incorporate lean principles into their daily management

Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game

By Jon Miller - March 14th, 2011

A Harvard Business Review article titled The Gamer Disposition makes a case for the players of multi-player online games as good candidates within the dynamic and flexible modern organization. Specifically the authors John Seely Brown

Kaizen Song: So What

By Jon Miller - March 11th, 2011

Who knew there were lyrics to this Miles Davis jazz standard from his classic Kind of Blue album. Here is the kaizen song version of these lyrics from So What. Put on the CD, lay down an A3, and sing along… So What (to the tune o

Insights from McKinsey Interview with Bombardier CEO Pierre Beaudoin

By Jon Miller - March 9th, 2011

An interview in this month’s McKinsey Quarterly with Bombardier CEO Pierre Beaudoin shares the lessons learned during the transformation across the past decade. Titled “Flying people, not planes” the article explains

Celebrating 2 Years of Gemba Academy

By Jon Miller - March 3rd, 2011

In March of 2009 Kevin Meyer, Ron Pereira and I launched Gemba Academy as a new way to help people learn about kaizen and lean. We had no idea what to expect when the site first went live. All of our forecasts were wrong. Initially we

Room Service Menus Gone Bad

By Jon Miller - February 24th, 2011

Telling the business traveler “you are in an inviable position” is bold but may not be the best way to sell freshly squeezed orange juice for 5 Euro per glass. The definition of “inviable” is “unable to su

Where Excellence Fears to Tread

By Jon Miller - February 17th, 2011

In the latest e-letter from Lean Enterprise Institute CEO John Shook titled Toyota and Sudden Acceleration: Facts from the NASA Report, John draws a few deeper lessons about the Toyota Way and the Toyota Production System by reflecting

Lean Consulting, Packaging and the Slow Path to Success

By Jon Miller - February 13th, 2011

I eat out too often. This is the factor of the amount of work-related travel and the difficulty of preparing my own food in a time and materials-efficient manner while on the road. This is one of the reasons why too many lean consultan

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