Jon Miller, Author at Gemba Academy

Lean Manufacturing in the Construction Industry

By Jon Miller - May 17th, 2006

Eric Sander Senior Operations Consultant I have recently had the pleasure of working with a young business owner who has discovered the potential of Lean Principles in an industry very much in need of improvement, the building trades.

Good News! Hospitals are Healing Themselves through Kaizen

By Jon Miller - May 16th, 2006

“All the things wrong with hospitals can be fixed.” Narrator Lloyd Dobyns tells us at the beginning of the video program Good News…How Hospitals Heal Themselves In the video program hospital administrators and clinicians tell

Gemba Keiei Chapter 21: Rationalization is Doing What is Rational

By Jon Miller - May 15th, 2006

The title of this chapter is somewhat awkward. By another translation you could read it as “Improvement means doing what is rational” or “Kaizen means following reason”. But here Taiichi Ohno is engaging in a bi

Five Practical Ways to Stay on the Sunny Side of Lean

By Jon Miller - May 12th, 2006

It’s not easy to read so much about the dark side of Lean. I’ve received e-mails this week from readers who are upset that I would post attacks on Lean manufacturing and kaizen. It’s no fun to learn terrible things about your fav

Interview with Darius Mehri, Author of “Notes from Toyota-land”

By Jon Miller - May 11th, 2006

Today we continue exploring the dark side of Lean as we interview Darius Mehri, author of Notes from Toyota-land. Darius is an American who spent three years working as an engineer in Japan at a Toyota group company. He changed the nam

Juxtaposition of an efficient assembly line and stressed workers

Lean Production Does Not Respect People

By Jon Miller - May 10th, 2006

Many of those exposing the dark side of Lean production take aim at “Lean production” as defined in the book The Machine that Changed the World. This book compares the Japanese and U.S. automotive industries and identifies best pra

Kanban cards in a flow with people represented on the cards

Human Kanban

By Jon Miller - May 9th, 2006

Kanban is a material and information flow management tool. They are typically cards attached to containers of parts. The cards contain information about the parts and these cards are reused, traveling with parts. Kanban are used to con

War, Oil and Lean Production

By Jon Miller - May 8th, 2006

Each day this week we will examine aspects of The Dark Side of Lean. Today’s theme is “War, Oil and Lean Production” – admittedly an extreme Left perspective based on Marxist thought and the examination of a murder-suicide at a

From the Mechanical Side to the Dark Side of Lean…

By Jon Miller - May 5th, 2006

This week started with an article about the top 5 reasons for using 3P. Requests from readers took us deeper into SMED and jidoka – all aspects of Lean manufacturing and machines. Without planning it the theme for the week was the �

The 5 Steps to Building Jidoka Equipment

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2006

Delving deeper into themes related to the Production Preparation Process (3P) today I’ll explain what is meant by the “5 Steps of Jidoka” mentioned number sixteen of the 16 Catch Phrases of 3P. About Jidoka First some background

Gemba Keiei Chapter 20: What I Learned About Forging Changeover from Toyota do Brasil

By Jon Miller - May 3rd, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by saying “In order to achieve Just in Time you need to solve your changeover problems and reduce lot sizes. Forging processes are the most difficult.” This chapter should really be titled “Toyota

Designing Processes to Fit Lean Manufacturing with the 16 Catch Phrases of 3P

By Jon Miller - May 2nd, 2006

The 16 Catch Phrases of 3P are used as guidelines for designing processes according to Lean manufacturing principles of JIT (Takt, Flow, Pull) and Jidoka. As a result of a successful 3P workshop following the 16 Catch Phrases the equip

The Top 5 Reasons for Using Production Preparation Process (3P)

By Jon Miller - May 1st, 2006

Last week we had the opportunity to give an online presentation to an automobile manufacturer on the Production Preparation Process (3P) and the top 5 reasons for using it. We discussed the impact Production Preparation Process can hav

Tame the Hedgehog, Name it Kaizen

By Jon Miller - April 28th, 2006

A reader e-mailed me a couple of days ago and said “I personally don’t believe all problems can be solved by a group of workers gathered together doing Kaizen” and went on to make a convincing case that specialized kn

Lean Manufacturing, Industrial Engineering & HRD: No Animals Today

By Jon Miller - April 26th, 2006

Leon Fok asked me a question today about the differences in Japanese and American management practices and how this affects their kaizen efforts. Leon is the Publications Coordinator at Gemba and has been with us a month. His question

Lean Broadcasting? NHK Calls Toyota for Help with Kaizen

By Jon Miller - April 19th, 2006

Another embattled Japanese state-owned enterprise asked Toyota executives for help with kaizen yesterday. NHK (the national broadcasting corporation) has requested that Toyota send an official to join the board of directors of NHK. Toy

Kaizen in a Petri Dish

By Jon Miller - April 18th, 2006

Last summer while teaching VSM and demonstrating one-piece flow at one of our client’s factories in southern China I was introduced to the General Manager. He shook my hand. He wasted no time. He had one urgent question for me: “Ho

Gemba Keiei Chapter 19: Toyota Made the Kanban System Possible

By Jon Miller - April 17th, 2006

In this chapter Taiichi Ohno explains the origin and the conditions that resulted in the development of the kanban system at Toyota. In the beginning the machining process upstream would replenish what the assembly process downstream u

Lean Food Service: Cut Overproduction, Feed the Hungry

By Jon Miller - April 13th, 2006

One of the informal definitions of Lean manufacturing is “doing more with less”. A Puget Sound Business Journal article titled Throw Out Less Food and Help the Less Fortunate made a lot of sense to me. It maps out some prac

Job Shop Kaizen

By Jon Miller - April 12th, 2006

A continuous improvement specialist from a UTC group company e-mailed us today with the question “What principles should I look to implement for Job Shop Kaizen?” Kaizen in a job shop should aim to implement the same principles as

First Face of Innovation: Go to Gemba

By Jon Miller - April 10th, 2006

I’m reading The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley, general manager of IDEO. These days innovation seems to be the trump card of executives and politicians who have grown bored with operational excellence. So I picked up this

Gemba Keiei Chapter 18: Supermarket System

By Jon Miller - April 7th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno starts out the chapter not quite having left the themes of his last two chapters behind. He describes how the jidoka idea that came from the Toyota textile business led to one operator running 20 or 30 machines. This think

Reflections on Standard Work

By Jon Miller - April 6th, 2006

Many companies lack documented standards and procedures, including Standard Work. As a cornerstone of the Toyota Production System, Standard Work is distinct from standardization. It is represented on a Standard Work Sheet, capturing l

What is Lean Government?

By Jon Miller - April 4th, 2006

As Lean manufacturing and “Lean fill-in-the-blank” take root in mainstream business consciousness I am noticing more mention of “lean government” by politicians in sound bytes as well as press releases and articles. I’m afrai

Gemba Keiei Chapter 17: The Goal – Improve Productivity Ten-Fold

By Jon Miller - April 2nd, 2006

Taiichi Ohno recounts when he first learned in 1937 that the American worker was 9 times more productive than the Japanese worker. Taiichi Ohno heard this from a Mitsubishi Electric factory manager who had recently returned from a tour

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