Kevin Meyer, Author at Gemba Academy

Kevin Meyer

Kevin has over 35 years of manufacturing leadership experience in the automotive lighting, telecom electronics, and medical device industries. He has been responsible for lean transformations at Sylvania, Abbott Laboratories, Newport Corporation, and most recently as President of Specialty Silicone Fabricators. He guest lectures on business, manufacturing, and leadership topics at his alma mater Rensselaer as well as CalPoly.

101 Articles

The Value of Depth and Detail

By Kevin Meyer - September 9th, 2016

Nearly three decades ago one of my first bosses pulled me aside – I forget the underlying incident except that I had somehow screwed up – and bluntly told me to “sweat the details.” I clearly remember it to this day, and it bec

Respect by Sharing Knowledge

By Kevin Meyer - August 12th, 2016

Gaining knowledge is the first step to wisdom. Sharing knowledge is the first step to humanity. – Unknown Well over a decade ago when I became president of a medical device company, I already had many years of Lean experience. I kn

New Gemba Academy Videos: In the Ditch Towing Products

By Kevin Meyer - August 9th, 2016

Ron and the Gemba Academy team make their way to Mountain Home, Idaho, to meet with Chuck Ceccarelli and his team at In The Ditch Towing Products. In the Ditch has been on their lean journey for several years, and this 23 video serie

Back to the Beginning with Ohno, Suzuki, and Yoda

By Kevin Meyer - July 8th, 2016

As I was researching the remarkable similarities between Lean and Zen for my book, The Simple Leader, one of the most interesting – and meaningful – was the concept of the beginner’s mind. Taiichi Ohno said, “Ob

Performance, Not Policy

By Kevin Meyer - June 10th, 2016

Few people realize how employee policy manuals, usually given to you on your first day and then mostly forgotten, shape an organization’s culture and thereby its fundamental performance. To give you a reference point, one company I

The Reward of Just Doing It

By Kevin Meyer - May 13th, 2016

A few years ago I starting playing around with a book concept that described several personal and professional leadership methods and habits I had developed over my three decade career. I collected ideas, supporting information, and wo

A Break to Reflect and Unlearn

By Kevin Meyer - April 8th, 2016

By Kevin Meyer Over the past few years I’ve been working hard on cultivating positive habits. New habits can be powerful. But habits can also create barriers that limit our perspective, which can hinder kaizen, creativity, and even o

The Other Flow of Csíkszentmihályi

By Kevin Meyer - March 4th, 2016

Those of us in the Lean world are accustomed to discussing “flow” – where work is performed in an even manner to reduce mura. Activities are synchronized, layouts are optimized, resources are available exactly where a

The Liberating Lessons of Less

By Kevin Meyer - February 5th, 2016

By Kevin Meyer My twenty plus year Lean journey has changed my life in many ways, but perhaps none as significant as a creating a pervasive recognition of and disdain for waste. Coupled with respect for people, this has changed my care

A Goal to Explore Out of the Box

By Kevin Meyer - January 1st, 2016

By Kevin Meyer Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. – Ralph Emerson It’s that arbitrary time of the year when many folks reflect on the past and set goals for the coming yea

Now, at the Gemba

By Kevin Meyer - December 11th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. – Thich Nhat Hanh Many people have a problem with letting go of the past – whether painful or pleasant. Not me. I’ve always been able

A Reflective Perspective on Schein

By Kevin Meyer - November 13th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer I will take time to be alone today. I will take time to be quiet. In this silence I will listen… and I will hear my answers. – Ruth Fishel One of my great pleasures is going for a walk on the beach a couple blocks fr

Discovering the Inner Merton

By Kevin Meyer - October 9th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted. ― Thomas Merton, Love and Living Sometimes there are dots just waiting to

Discovering the Value of People

By Kevin Meyer - September 11th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer Big news in the business world: Wal-Mart is famous for keeping costs down, including employee-related costs. In Joplin, the company is testing a new approach: investing in workers through higher wages and training, on th

Owning Numerical Ignorance

By Kevin Meyer - August 14th, 2015

Earlier this year I discussed the value created by writing by hand. By writing on whiteboards or scribbling in a notebook, ownership, learning, and understanding is created. Similarly, truly understanding numbers creates ownership,

You’re Good When You Think You’re Bad

By Kevin Meyer - July 10th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer Well over a decade ago I created my first lean enterprise assessment, just as a tool to help me understand gaps in my organization. I’m generally loathe to use such tools as they are often misinterpreted, gamed,

The Value of Uber and Airbnb

By Kevin Meyer - June 12th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer The following is not an advertisement, even if it sounds like it. I will admit I am a big fan of Uber and use the service pretty much anytime I travel. Now that they’re in my relatively small town, I might start us

Slow… or Just Observant?

By Kevin Meyer - May 1st, 2015

By Kevin Meyer The recent earthquake in Nepal has led me to reflect a bit on the importance of observation. Just over a year ago my wife and I were in Nepal, visiting various locations in the Kathmandu valley as well as Pokhara and B

Find the Other Stories

By Kevin Meyer - April 10th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer I recently came across the following TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie where she talks about the “danger of a single story.” From growing up as a kid in Nigeria to studying in the United States and into

Learning by Writing… by Hand

By Kevin Meyer - March 17th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer I’m an early adopter tech geek at heart, and generally am among the first to embrace a new technology. I may not go to the extreme of standing in line for a new iPhone, but I will pay to upgrade to the latest model

Just Own It

By Kevin Meyer - February 24th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer In addition to having implemented lean in several companies, I’ve been fortunate to have been able to visit a large number of unique organizations where continuous improvement methods have taken root. Although f

The Engaging Value of Risk

By Kevin Meyer - February 3rd, 2015

By Kevin Meyer Humans tend to abhor chaos, and love to invoke rules to supposedly create order. We like rules because they make us feel protected, aligned, and perhaps operating on a fair playing field. At the same time we dislike rul

The Mindful Ohno

By Kevin Meyer - January 13th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer Mindfulness has become all the rage in personal and professional leadership these days, which is good and bad. Understood and done right, it is a very powerful concept. But as with most concepts it is also often misunde

Reflecting on the Intentional Routine

By Kevin Meyer - December 16th, 2014

By Kevin Meyer My post a couple weeks ago on Gratitude, for Gratitude, generated a large number of responses. Interestingly, most were private, commenting on both the nature of gratitude but especially on my daily routine. I had de

Airbnb and Uber – From Batch to One Piece Flow

By Kevin Meyer - November 17th, 2014

Some of the more interesting internet-driven companies these days are the likes of Airbnb and Uber. They call themselves part of the “sharing economy.” But let’s take a look at the word “share.” From the MacMillan dictionary

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