Kaizen Archives | Page 11 of 12

Seeing Problems for What they Are, Or Lean Insights from G.K. Chesterton

By Jon Miller - October 25th, 2007

G.K. Chesterton was an extremely clever early 20th century writer who used many twists of phrase to make his points. His style of thinking and the points he makes at times makes me wonder if members of the Toyoda family read and were i

The First Step to Kaizen the Environment: Problem Awareness

By Jon Miller - October 15th, 2007

The last few days have been ones of closer observation and increased awareness of what goes on around me, in preparation for today, Blog Action Day, when fifteen thousand bloggers are writing about the cause of protecting our environme

Prioritizing the Elimination of the 7 Types of Waste

By Jon Miller - October 3rd, 2007

Tim Wood helps us remember the 7 types of waste, but he does not teach us about prioritizing the elimination of the 7 types of waste. “TIM WOOD” stands for Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Over-pr

Ten Topics for Hansei After Kaizen Event

By Jon Miller - October 2nd, 2007

For better or worse, the 5-day kaizen event is a generally accepted and standard approach for rapid process improvement as part of a Lean implementation. There are both pros and cons to the 5-day kaizen event, of which more later. The

What Are You Building?

By Jon Miller - September 13th, 2007

For those of us who are in manufacturers, or in some way involved in making things or helping others make things, we think in terms of what we build, the materials, tools and processes we use. How would you answer if you were asked

Target, Actual, Please Explain

By Jon Miller - August 24th, 2007

I learned some important lessons today. One which I will share is to never compromise when it comes to placing visual status boards on the shop floor. Visual status boards promote problem solving and kaizen by exposing problems. There

45 Ways to Strengthen Kaizen Habits

By Jon Miller - August 16th, 2007

I have a suspicion that personal productivity bloggers are actually moonlighting Lean people. The 27 great tips to keep your life organized at Zen Habits contain advice familiar to us as one piece flow, bias for action, “zeroR

A Kaizen Team’s Secret Ingredient: Negative People

By Jon Miller - July 22nd, 2007

For many years Toyota people have said “No problem” is a problem (困らない事は困った事だ） so these negative people are a gift, are they not? In fact, you could say that a kaizen team’s secret ingredient i

How Many Ways Can You Do Kaizen at Your Company?

By Jon Miller - June 21st, 2007

The theme of kaizen and the human brain is one of our favorites here at Gemba, and this week’s post by Mike Lopez at the Lean blog takes on the important topics of psychology and Lean. Mike points out that the way in which you do

Want to Learn Kaizen? Forget About It

By Jon Miller - June 13th, 2007

Kaizen starts in the brain, so understanding the working of the brain is essential to doing kaizen better. A June 4, 2007 New Scientist article titled Forgetfulness is a tool of the brain suggests that if we want to learn kaizen, we al

The Top 10 Suggestion System Stumbles and How to Avoid Them

By Jon Miller - June 10th, 2007

Are you looking to implement an organizational suggestion system? Perhaps you already have one in place, but aren’t satisfied with the program? Read on to see our top 10 stumbles to avoid in your own suggestion system programs. T

Putting the Zen Back in Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 8th, 2007

The “zen” in the word “kaizen” has nothing to do with Zen Buddhism. This is a mistake we often see in books or presentations. Kaizen means continuous improvement, or literally “to change and make good̶

Do Kaizen Like Toyota

By Jon Miller - May 20th, 2007

How do we do kaizen like Toyota? Just the fact that we’re hearing this question more often is a good sign that either a) there is a growing awareness about there being a right way to do kaizen, or b) Toyota’s PR machine is

Warusa Kagen is a Revolution of Awareness

By Jon Miller - May 2nd, 2007

There is a Japanese term that I like but is sadly not used as often as others in the Lean community, and may be indicative of a lack of focus in this key area of awareness. It is warusa kagen (悪さかげん) and means “conditio

How to Use a Kaizen Newspaper

By Jon Miller - April 26th, 2007

Chris asked: Are there rules for what goes on a kaizen newspaper so it does not become a massive action item list? A “massive action item list” should be cause for celebration. A full kaizen newspaper is a good thing. The f

How to Get What You Want in Four Easy Steps

By Jon Miller - April 5th, 2007

About 20 years ago in a catchy pop song Joe Jackson said “You can’t get what you want till you know what you want.” I didn’t think much about those words at the time, but these words seem to contain deeper wisdom as the years g

Top 5 Things I’ve Never Heard from a Kaizen Team Member

By Jon Miller - February 28th, 2007

#5. “I’m surprised at how little we got done in four and a half days.” #4. “I have no concerns about these results being sustained.” #3. “Everything went as planned.” #2. “There’s n

When is Point Kaizen OK?

By Jon Miller - December 19th, 2006

Point kaizen refers to small, isolated improvements that are easy to implement quickly. The impact of point kaizens are typically small but they can have a large impact. Point kaizen are in contrast to line kaizen, plane kaizen, cube k

Applying the 80-20 Rule to Kaizen

By Jon Miller - October 3rd, 2006

I’m fond of the 80-20 principle. Any time an understanding of statistics, laws of physics or human biology can make day to day decision making easier, it’s a welcome thing. The same is true in applying the 80-20 rule to kai

Ouch! Change Hurts

By Jon Miller - August 30th, 2006

There’s an interesting article titled The Neuroscience of Leadership in Strategy+Business magazine. Thanks to Kathleen Fasanella for spotting and writing about it on her Fashion Incubator blog. The article has a tempting tagline

Visit Got Boondoggle? for the 10 Lessons to Kaizen the Kaizen

By Jon Miller - August 11th, 2006

There’s a great post and invaluable advice on how to kaizen the kaizen event from Mike Wroblewski at the Got Boondoggle? blog today. Mike was happy with the results from a kaizen event at an aerospace firm in Indiana, where his k

Top 3 Ways Kaizen Events Enable Culture Change

By Jon Miller - August 9th, 2006

“What is your approach to culture change?” we are often asked when clients are first getting to know us. It’s always tempting to pull out a PowerPoint presentation and go through our 12-Step Program for Culture Change

Do Heijunka with Your Kaizen Efforts

By Jon Miller - June 18th, 2006

Last week we performed an assessment at a tier one automobile manufacturer. This company has done some Lean manufacturing activities. Due to a large number of new product launches at the moment, kaizen activity appeared to us to be at

Following the Kaizen Process Out of the Lion’s Den

By Jon Miller - April 24th, 2006

I’ll be blogging on the theme of Lean manufacturing, Industrial Engineering and Human Resources Development this week. This is a topic that’s been on my mind for quite a while and it’s time some of it was written down. Industrial

Kaizen in a Petri Dish

By Jon Miller - April 18th, 2006

Last summer while teaching VSM and demonstrating one-piece flow at one of our client’s factories in southern China I was introduced to the General Manager. He shook my hand. He wasted no time. He had one urgent question for me: “Ho

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