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 to Achieve Zero Defects

By Ron Pereira - April 3rd, 2007

A few days ago my friend Jon Miller posted an interesting blog where the discussion was how to achieve zero defects. A few of my favorite bloggers, John Hunter and Pete Abilla, posted comments to Jon’s blog so I will not repe

Bloggers Unite in Keller Texas

By Ron Pereira - April 1st, 2007

Since starting Lean Six Sigma Academy I have been fortunate enough to form many new friends. Perhaps the most interesting friendship I have made is with one of the “giants” of the Lean blogosphere, Mark Graban. Mark and I live in t

Textron Six Sigma

By Ron Pereira - March 30th, 2007

I recently came across this article written about the Six Sigma program at Textron. In the article Bob Zimering, a Textron Master Black Belt, discusses Six Sigma at Textron and responds to some of its critics. When discussing th

How Not to Screw up Pluses and Deltas

By Ron Pereira - March 29th, 2007

An extremely powerful, yet often misused, tool is pluses and deltas. I say misused since 9 out of 10 people I know (including MANY consultants) do not know how to do them properly. What are Pluses and Deltas? The easiest way to do plus

The Hardest of the 5S’s

By Ron Pereira - March 27th, 2007

I recently heard the best explanation of which of the 5 S’s is the toughest to master. Many say how hard sorting all the rubbish is… others say that sustain is without a doubt the hardest.Both of these common responses are

Explaining Cp and Cpk

By Ron Pereira - March 26th, 2007

When we speak about the capability of processes we often refer to a couple indices called Cp and Cpk. These two indices, used together, can tell us how capable our process is and whether or not we have a centering issue. For the math

The Cat is Back!

By Ron Pereira - March 25th, 2007

The Cat is back! My blogging pal KT Cat, over at The Scratching Post, has thrown out another hot sports opinion related to his (or her) negative experience with Lean Six Sigma. I must admit I like to read this feline’s stuff a

North American Manufacturing

By Ron Pereira - March 21st, 2007

I recently read an interesting article related to manufacturing in North America. Here are some interesting quotes for those wanting the abbreviated version: “But CMP, which opened its first U.S. manufacturing operation just north of

Demystifying Design of Experiments

By Ron Pereira - March 19th, 2007

I love Design of Experiments (DOE). Over the years I have done my fair share of them – everything from simple 2^2 full factorial designs to your more complicated Response Surface Methodology designs. Tonight I want to start by explai

Introducing SPACER

By Ron Pereira - March 18th, 2007

Tonight I want to introduce one of the best tools available to ensure you have a good meeting or training class. The technique I am referring to is called SPACER. It stands for: Safety Purpose Agenda Conduct Expectations Roles It sound

The Mysterious Process Cycle Efficiency

By Ron Pereira - March 15th, 2007

A key metric used by Lean practitioners is Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE). You may also hear it called Value Added Ratio. When used in conjunction with a Value Stream Map, PCE is calculated as follows: Value Add Time / Production Lead

Oops!

By Ron Pereira - March 14th, 2007

I was just made aware that when you post a blog highlighting other good blogging links from the week you should call this a “carnival.” I called it a blogroll a few weeks back. You learn something new everyday!

Confused about Waste

By Ron Pereira - March 13th, 2007

A while back I wrote about how I felt waiting was the worst of the 7 wastes. OK, so being trapped on an airplane may have influenced that post a bit but I bring it up since I outlined the 7 (or 8 depending on whose book you read) deadl

TPS and Family Time

By Ron Pereira - March 11th, 2007

For some reason a book I had never read, and should have read many years ago, is the masterpiece The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker. Well the drought is over as I am presently devouring the book. It is a good book so far (I’m in chapter

Six Sigma City Magazine – Free

By Ron Pereira - March 10th, 2007

I just came across a pretty slick online magazine. Follow this link and gain access to the new online Six Sigma City Magazine. It’s free (for now at least). Until next time, I wish you all the best on your journey towards continu

Get on your Knees

By Ron Pereira - March 9th, 2007

I just read Mike Wrobleski’s recent post on leadership. It was good but actually sparked another thought in my mind related to a previous post he made some time ago after he went to the, oh I pray I get to go one day, Japan Kaikaku E

LSSA Carnival: 1

By Ron Pereira - March 8th, 2007

There was some awesome blogging this week. I especially liked Jon Miller’s take on standing in the circle. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at the story Kevin, of Evolving Excellence, had today regarding the heavy heads of consult

LSSA Site Update

By Ron Pereira - March 7th, 2007

I started this blog January 15, 2007 and didn’t know what to expect. I must confess and admit I am really enjoying myself. I have met so many cool people via email and have uncovered this underground movement of Lean and Six Sigma bl

Regression – Part 3

By Ron Pereira - March 6th, 2007

This evening we will wrap up our discussion of regression. So far we have discussed what regression is and a few ways to determine whether our model is significant. Next up I want to discuss something called the least squares me

Regression – Part 2

By Ron Pereira - March 5th, 2007

Last night we began our discussion on regression. Tonight, I want to talk about a few more things related to this topic. As I was thinking of what to write I realized how difficult it is to explain these topics without a flip ch

Regression – Part 1

By Ron Pereira - March 4th, 2007

After posting my recent blog on hypothesis testing I received a request to write about regression in a similar manner. As I am always focused on the “voice of the customer” I will take on regression tonight. This will b

The Tipping Point

By Ron Pereira - March 1st, 2007

The blog”scribbit” is one of the coolest, non CIPish, blogs I have ever come across. This blogger has some serious skills. She recently posted a blog about an excellent book I highly recommend you read – The Tipping P

Teaching our Kids

By Ron Pereira - March 1st, 2007

I am of the opinion that the US education system needs some major work. Today, in our public school system we push students through with little regard to what their strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes are. I once heard (from som

Hypothesis Testing

By Ron Pereira - February 27th, 2007

One of my favorite statistical tools is hypothesis testing. We can use hypothesis testing for many purposes. For example, we would use the popular 2-sample t-test when we have two samples of variable data and want to understand if they

Lean Six Sigma Hot Sports Opinions

By Ron Pereira - February 26th, 2007

It seems “Lean Six Sigma” has been on the minds of some bloggers lately. There was a great discussion over at the Gemba Research blog here. I saw Rob commented on the topic here. Last, but certainly not least, the folks at the Scra

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