Ron Pereira, Author at Gemba Academy | Page 20 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.

756 Articles

Happy 4th of July!

By Ron Pereira - July 4th, 2008

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.” ~Dwight D. Eisenhower A me

The Ultimate Productivity System: Zen to Done

By Ron Pereira - July 2nd, 2008

Leo Babauta is the founder of one of the most popular blogs around called Zen Habits (almost 60,000 subscribers as of this article). While he doesn’t write about lean manufacturing, per se, he does touch on many lean philosophies lik

Turn off the Lights

By Ron Pereira - July 1st, 2008

Walmart is in the news with their new logo. Something that isn’t getting as much press is a new thing Walmart is also beginning to do in their stores… turn off the lights. Where are the waffles? I was recently in my local

Ban the Stop Watch!

By Ron Pereira - June 30th, 2008

Allow me to introduce Joe, the plant Industrial Engineer. Joe is a nice boy fresh out of college. On this particular day old Joe comes popping out of his cubicle in his Dockers and white polo shirt holding a clip board and stop watch.

The Spiritual Side of Continuous Improvement

By Ron Pereira - June 26th, 2008

I’m exhausted – both physically and mentally. For the past 5 days I’ve been involved in an extremely intense kaizen. One could even call it a kaikaku – or radical change event. I’ve coached, learned, cleaned, painted, and swe

What is Value?

By Ron Pereira - June 20th, 2008

“Above all, lean practitioners must be relentlessly focused on the customer when specifying and creating value.” -Womack & Jones, Lean Thinking I love Seth Godin’s blog. He has written some amazing posts over the year

5 Steps to Developing a Tiger Like Attitude

By Ron Pereira - June 17th, 2008

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” -Thomas Jefferson Since watching and reading about the greatness that is T

5 Steps to Developing a Thinking Organization

By Ron Pereira - June 11th, 2008

Scott recently asked: Ron, you mention “thinking production system” instead of Toyota. How do you learn to “think” better? What’s your recommendation for that? I agree with your premise but in my experience, learning to think

Strategies to Sustain Operations Excellence

By Ron Pereira - June 9th, 2008

This is an abridged version of a presentation I recently gave at a manufacturing excellence conference. If you’d like to download the video follow this link to Google Video and click on download video.

Entropy, Salmon, and Swimming

By Ron Pereira - June 4th, 2008

A can of soup falls if you drop it, your car tire blows out when a nail punctures it, and eventually my barbeque grill cools down after grilling steaks, even in the hot Texas air. Why is this? Allow me to explain. While these things ar

Eight Reasons Your Lean/Six Sigma Initiative Could Fail

By Ron Pereira - June 1st, 2008

Launching a Lean or Six Sigma initiative signals a move towards operational excellence and a dedication to continuous improvement. Yet, navigating this journey successfully requires awareness of certain critical challenges that are oft

Conference Calls, Kids, and SMED

By Ron Pereira - May 30th, 2008

My wife is out of town to visit some relatives which means it’s me and my three kiddos for the weekend. Here is the sticky part. I had to arrange an important conference call today and was totally stressing out on how I was going to

8 Dimensions of Quality

By Ron Pereira - May 28th, 2008

The definition of quality is often a hotly debated topic. While it may seem intuitive, when we get right down to it, “quality” is a difficult concept to define with any precision. The most fundamental definition of a quality produc

A Lesson in Courage

By Ron Pereira - May 27th, 2008

“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.” -Baltasar Gracian Family Vacation Over the Memorial Day weekend my family and I went on a much needed vacation. We normally go to Sea World each summer, but since my wife is almost 8 month

Make a Mistake… Own up to it

By Ron Pereira - May 22nd, 2008

A lesson I’ve known for a long time was just reinforced for me here at a restaurant in the London Heathrow airport. Here’s what happened. I arrived at the airport early so decided to sit down for a nice English breakfast (

Lessons from the airport

By Ron Pereira - May 18th, 2008

Recently, in the DFW airport, as I was buying a bottle of water I watched an older man chastise two of his younger workers for wearing earrings. Apparently, in this store you aren’t allowed to wear things in your ears. Fair enough. B

Calculating Optimal Crew Size in Mixed Model Cells

By Ron Pereira - May 13th, 2008

I have a question for you. How would you staff a cell that produces multiple products, all with varying cycle times? In this article I will offer my thoughts and am excited to hear your comments as to how you would (or do) approach it

How metrics like OEE often dictate behavior

By Ron Pereira - May 11th, 2008

A reader of the blog asked me the following question via email. I am a production engineer for 3 packaging lines and our overall indicator is overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). Our OEE is calculated using the maximum speed that the

Why Do Employees Underperform?

By Ron Pereira - May 9th, 2008

The best free lean magazine I know of, Industry Week, recently discussed an interesting survey done by LifeCare Inc. where they investigated why some employees underperform in their jobs. While I am from the school that says you nee

Is Toyota in Trouble?

By Ron Pereira - May 8th, 2008

When I launched Google News this morning my eyes were immediately drawn to the headline “Toyota Posts First Profit Drop in Three Years.” To summarize the article: Net income fell 28 percent to 316.8 billion yen ($3 billion) in the

Stumped in the Toilet

By Ron Pereira - May 6th, 2008

I’d like to think I am a relatively intelligent person. I graduated with a 3.8 GPA during my undergrad studies and a 3.7 GPA while getting an MBA. But, alas, today I realized I still have much to learn as I attempted to use

The Enemy of Better

By Ron Pereira - May 5th, 2008

Do you aspire to be the best? How about your company… do they want to be the best? If so, I contend this is the deadliest goal you or your organization can have. Allow me to explain. You see if you are indeed the “best” as de

Confused about Time

By Ron Pereira - May 1st, 2008

For those new to continuous improvement the concept of time can be confusing. In this article I hope to clear up some common misunderstandings. Takt Time The word takt comes to us from the German language and literally means pace or rh

Life is like a bowl of oranges

By Ron Pereira - April 29th, 2008

As I mentioned towards the end of our most recent video the demonstration with the oranges, pebbles, sand, and water can be used to explain a far more important life lesson. Before this, please allow me to thank you for your comments a

Tips for Dealing with Conflict

By Ron Pereira - April 21st, 2008

Our ability, as business leaders, to manage conflict can’t be overstated. If you’ve never dealt with conflict in a professional environment…well, you live a blessed life. Most of us, however, have almost certainly facilitated a m

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