Ron Pereira, Author at Gemba Academy

Ron Pereira

Ron has more than 20 years of experience in various manufacturing, supply chain, and senior leadership roles. Ron has held the titles of process engineer, engineering manager, master black belt, and director of manufacturing & continuous improvement. In 2002 Ron was the first American to win the Nokia Global Six Sigma and Overall Quality award in Helsinki, Finland. Ron holds a bachelor's degree in automated manufacturing and an MBA in technology management.

759 Articles

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

Seek and Destroy (Muda)

By Ron Pereira - December 18th, 2008

(electric guitar plays) Alright! Scanning the scene in the city tonight We’re looking for you to start up a fight There’s an evil feeling in our brains But it’s nothing new you know it drives us insane. Back in the Da

5 Characteristics of a Successful Person

By Ron Pereira - December 15th, 2008

I was recently asked to describe the key characteristics of a successful leader/person. Here’s my take on it. 1. Hustle Nothing beats hustle. I don’t care how smart someone is, in my opinion, if they’re not willing to work their

Bathroom Lean

By Ron Pereira - December 9th, 2008

Here’s a fun question for all you male lean thinkers – in order to streamline the morning bathroom practice of showering, shaving, and brushing your teeth – what is the “leanest” way to go about it. Do eac

Japan Airlines CEO Comments on Big 3 CEO’s

By Ron Pereira - December 9th, 2008

I first saw this on John Hunter’s blog. It’s a little over 2 minutes and definitely worth viewing… especially in light of recent events in America.

How to Create Meaningful Safety Graphs

By Ron Pereira - December 2nd, 2008

Creating meaningful charts and graphs for safety related issues can be hard, not to mention confusing. It doesn’t have to be. In this article I will share a technique that may help bring some clarity to the situation. The Wrong Appro

Thankful

By Ron Pereira - November 26th, 2008

I’m sitting here at my PC working on a little “project” I can’t wait to tell you all about. In fact, I’ll probably be sitting here well into the morning… but I am definitely not complaining. Anyhow

The Spinning Lady: Part 2

By Ron Pereira - November 25th, 2008

It’s always interesting how a post that takes me 48 seconds to write can create so much discussion! As of right now there have been 28 29 comments left on the spinning lady post… most explaining how she is spinning one wa

The Spinning Lady

By Ron Pereira - November 24th, 2008

OK, are you up for a challenge? If so, which way is the lady spinning: clockwise or counter-clockwise? Leave your answer in the comments if you want to play. And let me just say… don’t be so sure about your answer.

Helping our Friend from Down Under: Part Two

By Ron Pereira - November 21st, 2008

If you had one story to “sell” lean or six sigma to over 1,000 employees what would you say? Well, that’s precisely the situation our friend Gail is facing Down Under. To get the full history of Gail’s story please check out pa

Helping our Friend from Down Under: Part One

By Ron Pereira - November 18th, 2008

Here’s how cool blogging is. A week or so ago I got an email from Petri, a lean practitioner in Finland. His question was so good it inspired this post which stirred up some excellent discussion. Last night we received another commen

Leadership Lessons from the Cheesecake Factory

By Ron Pereira - November 12th, 2008

To celebrate my wife’s birthday, we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake factory. If you’ve never been to the Cheesecake factory you need to go. The menu is massive, the drink selection amazing, and the food is out of thi

How to Conduct a Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA), Part One

By Ron Pereira - November 9th, 2008

As promised a few posts ago, I’d like to explain exactly how to go about completing a measurement systems analysis (MSA). If the sound of this makes you want to yawn… well… stop it! It’s Monday and time to get focused (and some

How Do You Measure Success?

By Ron Pereira - November 5th, 2008

I recently received the following question from Petri, a reader of LSS Academy. The issue I wanted to contact you about was if LSSA has ever done work on measuring lean success? I am not sure if there are any tools which are used in th

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