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

How beer influenced statistics

By Ron Pereira - June 20th, 2007

Back in the early 1900s a certain W.S. Gosset, an Englishmen, was tasked with brewing better beer. Really, I’m being serious. Gosset was a bright man, with two degrees from Oxford, and was hired by Guinness to help them brew

Stop “Deploying” and Make Something Better

By Ron Pereira - June 20th, 2007

A reader of the Lean Blog left this comment to the excellent post Psychology and Lean. Unsolicited advice…. but maybe instead of pushing lean (and maybe you aren’t)… figure out what the main problems and pain points

The Pugh Matrix

By Ron Pereira - June 19th, 2007

By Rob Thompson The Pugh matrix was invented by Stuart Pugh at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. It was designed as an approach for evaluating multiple options against each other, relative to a baseline option. It goe

Lean Dentist

By Ron Pereira - June 18th, 2007

I believe the guys over at the Lean Blog may have previously discussed this story… but in case you missed it I wanted to share it. There is a dentist that believes in lean thinking and is becoming recognized for it. Here is

We interrupt this Blog

By Ron Pereira - June 18th, 2007

I apologize for the technical difficulties today. My hosting company (name starts with a color and ends with the word host) has failed me the last few weeks. Today the site was down for much of the afternoon. Needless to say I wi

Boring wins Championships

By Ron Pereira - June 17th, 2007

Me and the fam took our annual trip to San Antonio this weekend… my kids love Shamu so we ventured back to Sea World. Like any good blogger, I had my eyes and ears open for some good material to share with you all. I saw this m

Dealing with Non Normal Data

By Ron Pereira - June 15th, 2007

Robin, over on the iSixSigma blog, had an interesting post regarding hypothesis testing. Specifically, the question posed was how to deal with non normal data. Typically, most Six Sigma practitioners are taught to use “non parame

7 Tips to Better Brainstorming

By Ron Pereira - June 14th, 2007

Brainstorming is an extremely powerful tool. Most of us have likely been part of a brainstorming session before. Sadly, it’s been my experience that about 9 out of 10 people have no clue how to brainstorm the right way. So

Computer Kaizen

By Ron Pereira - June 13th, 2007

I have a question for you. If I asked you to locate a random file I knew you had on your computer how long would it take you to find it? Less than 30 seconds? What about the performance of your computer? Is the Internet moving

Help Decision Making with a Cause & Effect (C&E) Matrix

By Ron Pereira - June 12th, 2007

Last night we discussed how we can use a Cause and Effect (C&E) Matrix to narrow down a long list of inputs into a more manageable one. I also provided a free MS Excel C&E Matrix Template for those interested. Tonight I wan

About The Cause & Effect (C&E) Matrix

By Ron Pereira - June 11th, 2007

One of my favorite continuous improvement tools is the cause and effect matrix (C&E Matrix). Sometimes you will hear this tool referred to as a XY Matrix. However, I am not referring to the Ishikawa Diagram (fishbone) even thou

LSSA Carnival – 2

By Ron Pereira - June 9th, 2007

Here are some of my favorite posts from around the blogosphere this week. John Hunter, in response to one of my more controversial posts, offered an excellent take on how bad management results in layoffs. Over on the iSixSigma blog Mi

Why Heijunka – Part 2

By Ron Pereira - June 7th, 2007

Last night we discussed why we would use heijunka in a manufacturing environment in response to a readers question. Tonight I want to focus in on why we would want to use heijunka, or leveling, in an office environment. This could

Why Heijunka – Part 1

By Ron Pereira - June 6th, 2007

B.D. asked, “You’re talking about HOW to do heijunka, but I’m not seeing WHY.” Great comment B.D. I will attempt to answer the why here this evening. Let’s dig into the manufacturing side of things in this articl

Heijunka in the Front Office

By Ron Pereira - June 5th, 2007

In the house of Toyota heijunka belongs in the foundation. Sadly many people dismiss this critical lean concept explaining how it isn’t relevant for their business. Heijunka which is properly pronounced (hey-june-kah) and n

Is Laying People off Really Anti-Lean?

By Ron Pereira - June 2nd, 2007

Update: June 3 @ 7:33 PM CST Over the weekend, this post has had some good action (via comments and emails I have received). I am modifying the original post ever so slightly to make the “assumptions” a bit more clear.

6 Ways to Use Lean & Six Sigma at Home

By Ron Pereira - June 1st, 2007

Here are some ways to use Lean and Six Sigma methods away from the office. Sort clothes according to color and place them into different bins eliminating the need to sort. When the bin is full wash those clothes. Don’t wait

More IBM Nonsense

By Ron Pereira - June 1st, 2007

Here is a doozy related to more IBM “Lean” blabber. I am pretty sure the only quote I need to share is this. “Lean is a collection of Six Sigma business processes used by a number of leading companies to improve

All the Surveys are Beginning to Whip Me

By Ron Pereira - June 1st, 2007

OK, I need to pick on some Lean friends of mine. Well actually they may not even know I exist… but I digress. Anyhow, I was reading an article over at Industry Week (IW), Just-In-Time Remains Justifiable. It’s a good article an

5 Steps to Data Collection

By Ron Pereira - May 31st, 2007

In most Six Sigma training programs and text books you will hear about a 5 step data collection process. However, what they don’t tell you is that collecting data is tricky. Many people think they can simply run off and gra

Calling all Bloggers!

By Ron Pereira - May 30th, 2007

One of the ideas I have been tossing around is inviting others interested in Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement in general to “guest blog” here at LSS Academy. So if you are a Blogger wanting to co

Typical Project Management

By Ron Pereira - May 30th, 2007

Click to Enlarge Photo Credit: 1

WordPress Rocks!

By Ron Pereira - May 30th, 2007

When I first transitioned this blog over to WordPress (WP) I wondered if I had made a terribe mistake. Blogger was so easy to use and format. You can drag and drop things to your hearts desire. This was gone when I went to a sel

5S Simulation

By Ron Pereira - May 29th, 2007

I received my prize for my hard fought victory in the recent Gemba blog 5S competition. The prize was a 5S simulation game. My 4 year old daughter has been after me to let her have a shot at it. Yesterday was her lucky day! I do

Tsurube System

By Ron Pereira - May 29th, 2007

After reading some Lean textbooks and possibly attending a conference or two many “Lean Dreams” are crushed when the practitioner is told, “Friend, there ain’t no way we are converting that $4 million paint line into some fancy

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