Jon Miller, Author at Gemba Academy

Why Is Your Lean Effort Failing?

By Jon Miller - July 29th, 2007

The Lean Blog is always a good place for insights and discussion on why Lean efforts struggle or fail. Previous discussions have delved into Lean efforts that are in fact LAME. Mark Graban wrote about the survey format of the Lean Inst

The Importance of “So What?” in A3 Kaizen

By Jon Miller - July 28th, 2007

One of the things that makes Toyota-style problem solving so effective is the insistence on true root cause analysis and countermeasures. In simple terms this is known as “asking why 5 times” or “5 why”. Instead

A Closed Mitt and an Open Mind

By Jon Miller - July 26th, 2007

Sorting through old documents as part of my regular 5S at the office I came across another consulting firm’s Lean training materials, collected about a decade ago. These explained Lean manufacturing and the idea of eliminating wa

Free Skill Matrix Template

By Jon Miller - July 25th, 2007

Here is a free skill matrix template in Microsoft Excel format. We receive many requests on this blog and to Gemba Research about the skill matrix template. The skill matrix is a very broadly useful visual management tool for people de

TPS & the Tao

By Jon Miller - July 23rd, 2007

Some time ago a woman who was studying Taoism and also reading Taiichi Ohno said, “The more I read Taiichi Ohno’s book The Toyota Production System-Beyond Large-Scale Production, the more I believe that his philosophies are

A Kaizen Team’s Secret Ingredient: Negative People

By Jon Miller - July 22nd, 2007

For many years Toyota people have said “No problem” is a problem (困らない事は困った事だ） so these negative people are a gift, are they not? In fact, you could say that a kaizen team’s secret ingredient i

Kaizen Song: Downstream Pull

By Jon Miller - July 19th, 2007

This kaizen song is dedicated to all of you materials managers and planners out there working to establish pull systems… Downstream Pull (to the melody of “Downtown Train” by Tom Waits) Line side another yellow andon

There is No Honor in Muri

By Jon Miller - July 18th, 2007

Unreasonableness is a six syllable, sixteen letter word. It’s a lot simpler to say muri in Japanese. Certainly less precious breath is wasted without the four extra syllables. Muri arises when you try to fight variability at the

Lean for Airports (Dare to Dream…)

By Jon Miller - July 17th, 2007

The new Nagoya International Airport was famously built under budget and faster than scheduled thanks to help in Lean thinking from Toyota advisors. In another example of public-private partnership, a July 17, 2007 Computerworld UK art

Challenge, Kaizen, Genchi Genbutsu, Respect, Teamwork

By Jon Miller - July 16th, 2007

Challenge, kaizen, genchi genbutsu, respect, and teamwork. These are the five ideas that were codified as the fundamental principles that guide the actions of Toyota people in the “Toyota Way 2001”. We might call them ̶

12 Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. to Inspire Change

By Jon Miller - July 15th, 2007

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great leader and a historic change agent. Studying his quotes can inspire those of us who work to make positive change each day. King said: A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of c

Q&A During a Recent Gemba Walk

By Jon Miller - July 13th, 2007

Gemba walks are great fun. But it’s become clearer to me only recently that they can be awkward at first to the leader in transition from traditional style to Lean management. With permission and without revealing the identity of

Is Michael Moore a Lean Thinker?

By Jon Miller - July 11th, 2007

Monday on the Lean Blog Mark Graban did some interesting reflection and analysis on claims by filmmaker Michael Moore that 18,000 people die each year in the U.S. due to the lack of health insurance. The U.S. population, per Google, is

Top 10 Improvement Tools Named After Lean Sensei

By Jon Miller - July 9th, 2007

1. Ohno Circle Taiichi Ohno was the Toyota executive largely responsible for structuring and implementing the system known today as the Toyota Production System over four decades after World War II. Ohno was known for drawing a chalk c

New Metric for Lean Leadership: MTBFTFTBF

By Jon Miller - July 8th, 2007

Those of you who are familiar with TPM or other progressive maintenance systems will recognize MTBF. The acronym MTBF refers to the mean time between failures. For products, MTBF is a reliability rating indicating the expected failure

Three More Ways to Increase Personal Productivity through 5S

By Jon Miller - July 5th, 2007

The discipline of 5S increases personal productivity by making your work environment simpler, more structured, and safer. Much of the time that is saved is time not spent looking for things by being able to see right away whether every

Toyota Production System A to Z

By Jon Miller - July 3rd, 2007

If you ever find yourself face to face with a Japanese Lean sensei, you might find some of these words useful in building common ground. Andon – Colored lamps (red, yellow, green) or visual indicator of abnormalities Batch –

Your Lizard Brain Wants to Help You Be Lean

By Jon Miller - July 2nd, 2007

An article on July 1, 2007 in LiveScience titled Study Reveals Why We Learn From Mistakes sheds light on why visual management and the habit of genchi genbutsu is so important to problem identification and learning. Once again, brain s

Intuition, Information and the Toyota Production System

By Jon Miller - July 1st, 2007

There are quite a few things that are counterintuitive about the Lean management system known as TPS. They are all fairly simple things, but hard to do since they feel wrong to people who have not been swimming in the waters of TPS for

Standard Work for the CEO

By Jon Miller - June 28th, 2007

A great thing about blogging is that it becomes a visual management tools for our company. In many ways, what we are doing is posting standards about how we think, teach and manage at Gemba. This is free and open for all team members,

The Secret to Calculating Takt Time in Your Head, Fast

By Jon Miller - June 26th, 2007

People are always amazed when I do takt time calculations lickety-split in my head. Here’s my secret: it’s the result of a lot of practice with doing math in the head, and memorizing a few nifty net available time numbers.

Taiichi Ohno’s Revolution of Awareness

By Jon Miller - June 25th, 2007

Very early in the book Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management the architect of the Toyota Production System calls for “a revolution of awareness”. He proceeds to talk about misconceptions and false beliefs of various typ

10 Common Misconceptions About Lean Manufacturing

By Jon Miller - June 24th, 2007

1. Lean production = volume production. In Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management he suggested that the Toyota system was ideally suited for low volume production, and not as well suited for the higher volume production that Toyota

How Many Ways Can You Do Kaizen at Your Company?

By Jon Miller - June 21st, 2007

The theme of kaizen and the human brain is one of our favorites here at Gemba, and this week’s post by Mike Lopez at the Lean blog takes on the important topics of psychology and Lean. Mike points out that the way in which you do

What Does the Observer Have to Do with the Observed?

By Jon Miller - June 20th, 2007

The fact that light is both a wave and a particle at the same time has been puzzling physicists for decades. More recently, managers have been puzzled by the fact that work is both value and waste at the same time. This wonderful video

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