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

Looking Forward with Alfred Adler

By Kevin Meyer - November 9th, 2018

Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations. – Alfred Adler I’m not really sure how it started, but one day a couple months ago I found myself diving down an i

Treating Lean Psychosis

By Kevin Meyer - October 12th, 2018

The treatment of people with severe mental illness often means locking them away in large, impersonal facilities or letting them bounce between short stays at in-patient units at major hospitals, followed by a rapid decline of function

Midnight at the Gemba

By Kevin Meyer - August 31st, 2018

In the late 1990s I was working in the Silicon Valley for a Fortune-50 medical device company, responsible for a drug infusion pump manufacturing operation. I had just completed a crazy period where I had also “temporarily̶

When Noise Masks the Problem

By Kevin Meyer - August 3rd, 2018

Last week I was reading Mark Graban’s latest book, Measures of Success, which does a great job of discussing how to use data to effectively lead and manage an organization. With new technologies it has become so easy to capture

New Videos: Lean and Sustainability at Texas Nameplate

By Kevin Meyer - July 25th, 2018

Gemba Academy just released a new Gemba Academy Live! video series where we visit Texas Nameplate in Lancaster, Texas. Dale Crownover, CEO of Texas Nameplate, has spoken at numerous lean and continuous improvement conferences, include

Thinking About Thinking

By Kevin Meyer - July 9th, 2018

For the past several years I’ve been fascinated by how we think – and how that affects us, our leadership, and the organizations we’re a part of. A couple years ago I wrote about the beginner’s mind and the va

Going to the Gemba with Anthony Bourdain

By Kevin Meyer - June 29th, 2018

It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to

Using Solitude and Silence to Enable Personal Reflection

By Kevin Meyer - June 1st, 2018

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 Last Memorial Day weekend, while the rest of the country was enjoying the roar of the Indy 5

Learn by Preparing to Teach

By Kevin Meyer - May 11th, 2018

Many studies have shown that one of the most effective ways to learn new material is not just to perform an activity with the new knowledge, but to teach it. It’s the reason why several companies ask interview finalists for new

Lean Municipal Government Forum in Grand Rapids

New Videos: Lean Municipal Government Forum

By Kevin Meyer - May 4th, 2018

Is your city’s government using lean? If not, perhaps you should forward this to them! We just released a new video series with the presentations and tours from the Lean Municipal Government Forum recently held in Grand Rapids, M

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