Ron Pereira, Author at Gemba Academy | Page 17 of 31

Ron Pereira

Ron Pereira is a co-founder and the Managing Director of Gemba Academy and has more than 30 years of experience helping organizations improve performance through Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement. Prior to starting Gemba Academy, Ron served in a variety of manufacturing, supply chain, and leadership roles, including process engineer, engineering manager, Master Black Belt, and director of manufacturing and continuous improvement. Today, Ron works with leaders around the world to develop problem-solving capabilities, strengthen leadership, and build cultures where continuous improvement thrives. Through his writing, podcast interviews, and educational programs, he shares practical insights that help organizations achieve lasting operational excellence.

758 Articles

Do We Even Need the 4th and 5th S?

By Ron Pereira - March 20th, 2009

Jon Miller – my friend, mentor, and now business partner – has asked his readers some extremely interesting questions regarding whether the 4th and 5th S, in 5S are even needed. Your feedback will be used by us as we finish

Sandwich Making Muda

By Ron Pereira - March 19th, 2009

I absolutely love to watch people. And I don’t mean watch in a creepy kind of way… I mean I love to watch people work and do their jobs. Well, today I was getting some lunch at a restaurant I often go to and I noticed they had impl

The Cost of Searching

By Ron Pereira - March 17th, 2009

Studies have shown that the average person can spend around 30 seconds every 5 minutes of their working day searching for something. That’s not too bad… or is it? Consider This Well, if you consider that this is 30 seconds out of a

Gemba Academy homepage in 2009.

It’s Officially On: Gemba Academy Launches

By Ron Pereira - March 15th, 2009

Note, this post was originally written on March 15, 2009. See what Gemba Academy looked like back then. After many, many hours of PDCA (plan, do, check, act) the time has finally arrived for Gemba Academy to officially open its doors f

The Greatest in the Kingdom

By Ron Pereira - March 12th, 2009

I was recently reading my all time favorite book and came across some comments that caused me to ponder a few of the articles I’ve recently written about being an expert and how many hours it takes to become an expert. Here’

An Expert State of Mind

By Ron Pereira - March 10th, 2009

A person going by the name of “ford” left a very interesting comment to my post about it taking 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. Here was the comment: “The moment one gets into the `expert’ state of mind

Web Check-In: Lean or Not?

By Ron Pereira - March 8th, 2009

The Pereira household has been battling flu like symptoms for over a week now. My kids have all had it and most recently my wife got it. I, knocking on wood, have escaped it so far but I am not getting cocky about it! In any event, at

Spreading the Gospel with Web Video

By Ron Pereira - March 5th, 2009

Man, who would have thought a video I shot at around midnight with a crappy digital camera and some shop lights from Home Depot clipped to a step ladder – yes that’s exactly how I did it! – would be watched more than

The Art of Giving Instructions

By Ron Pereira - March 3rd, 2009

So, it would seem that the conversation between cake maker and customer went something like this. Cake Making Employee: Hello, how can I help you? Customer: I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week. Cake Making Emp

Stop Shining… Clean to Inspect

By Ron Pereira - March 1st, 2009

The third S, in 5S, is commonly referred to as shine. A more accurate translation of the original Japanese word – seisou – is probably scrub or sweep. But shine works as well. Missing the Point But here’s the thing. Most people c

10,000 Hours of Practice

By Ron Pereira - February 26th, 2009

10,000 hours. That’s precisely how long you need to practice something before you can even think about calling yourself an expert. Well, at least this is what Malcolm Gladwell claims in his newest book Outliers, which I must say is o

You’re Late. What Do you Say?

By Ron Pereira - February 24th, 2009

It’s 7:58 AM and beads of sweat are forming on your forehead. Your pulse rate is increasing as you grip your steering wheel tightly. And to make matters worse… you forgot your mobile phone at home. In 2 minutes you will officially

The Complete Meaning of Shitsuke

By Ron Pereira - February 22nd, 2009

There are some Westerners (Americans, Europeans, etc.) who get all bothered when lean folks use too many Japanese terms. So these people go on about how it’s “Policy Deployment” and not “Hoshin Kanri” or it’s “Continuous

Free Introduction to Lean Video

By Ron Pereira - February 18th, 2009

Here is part one of our first Gemba Academy video. To see the complete and full screen version – in high definition – please visit our main site. Stay tuned for more free videos in the coming weeks.

Smiling, Laughing, and Blow-out Diapers

By Ron Pereira - February 17th, 2009

A friend, who’ll stay nameless since it involves a family member of his, recently told the story of how his 8 month old child threw-up on him, smiled, laughed and then had a blow-out diaper. How’s that for imagery? Well, my fri

Gemba Academy: Improvement Learning, Improved

By Ron Pereira - February 14th, 2009

Let me start with three words: passionate, ecstatic and enthralled. Passionate is the perfect word to describe how I feel about continuous improvement. While ecstatic best describes my joy at being able to share some exciting news with

Genchi Genbutsu: Do You Really Understand It?

By Ron Pereira - February 13th, 2009

If you’ve read this blog – or really any other lean related publication – you’ve likely heard the phrase genchi genbutsu used many times. “Data is of course important in manufacturing, but I place the greatest emp

Is Pottery Barn Lean?

By Ron Pereira - February 11th, 2009

We’ve had the same couch for about 8 years. I love it. It’s one of those huge sectionals with the “captain’s chair” in the middle. I’ve watched my Buckeyes win a National Championship while sitting on this couch. I’ve als

7 Practical Ways to Respect People

By Ron Pereira - February 2nd, 2009

How many times have you heard lean advocates ramble on about how respecting people is a key tenet of the vaunted Toyota Production System? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this AND written it myself here on LSS Academy. A

The Best Investment Advice

By Ron Pereira - January 26th, 2009

Note: This is the 400th article here on LSS Academy! I’ll take some time to reflect on this in the near future. But for now, I have a far more important topic to discuss. Read on. Times are tough. Real tough. You may have recently lo

The Secret to Success – Practice

By Ron Pereira - January 25th, 2009

What do Tiger Woods and Taiichi Ohno, one of the chief architects of the Toyota Production System, have in common? Well – besides making history in their particular fields of excellence – both of these men believe/believed

5 Tips for Video Taping Others

By Ron Pereira - January 14th, 2009

I’ve recently been involved with a SMED (single minute exchange of dies) kaizen event. The event itself was extremely effective and tons of fun… and while I could share the specifics of the event with you I won’t. Instead, I want

Proud to Be a Buckeye

By Ron Pereira - January 6th, 2009

As regular readers of the blog know I am a huge Ohio State University fan. Well, as many of my American readers probably know we lost to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl tonight with only seconds left on the clock. It was a true heart brea

The Kaizen Blitz!

By Ron Pereira - December 31st, 2008

Enjoy and Happy New Year all!

Full Court Press Time

By Ron Pereira - December 21st, 2008

“The heights by great men reached and kept, were not obtained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Things are going to slow down f

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