Respect by Sharing Knowledge

By Kevin Meyer - August 12th, 2016

Gaining knowledge is the first step to wisdom. Sharing knowledge is the first step to humanity. – Unknown Well over a decade ago when I became president of a medical device company, I already had many years of Lean experience. I kn

GA 123 | How to Reflect on Your Lean Journey with Phil Roether

By Jessica Bush - August 11th, 2016

Today’s guest is Phil Roether, President Emeritus of AME. Now retired, Phil shared some stories from his impressive career and reflected back on the ups and downs of his lean journey thus far. An MP3 version of this episode is

My Ideal Day

By Ron Pereira - August 5th, 2016

It was around 11:30 PM on a Thursday night a little more than 7 years ago. I was sitting at my home office desk working late into the night. What was I working on? Two words – Gemba Academy. You see, when we first started Gemba A

GA 122 | How to Improve Your Lean ROI with Cheryl Jekiel

By Jessica Bush - August 4th, 2016

Today’s guest is Cheryl Jekiel, Founder of the Lean Leadership Resource Center. Cheryl explained how the concept of ROI, or return on investment, applies to the people-aspect of lean. An MP3 version of this episode is available f

GA 121 | Leading AME with George Saiz

By Jessica Bush - July 28th, 2016

Today’s guest is George Saiz, President and CEO of AME, or the Association of Manufacturing Excellence. George talked about how his first few months in the role have gone, and shared some of the wisdom he’s gathered throug

GA 120 | How to Invest in People with Jamie Parker

By Jessica Bush - July 21st, 2016

Today’s episode features the audio from our recent webinar with Jamie Parker, a Region Manager at FedEx Office and passionate lean practitioner. Jamie gave us a detailed look at FedEx Office’s lean journey, including both

Don’t Let Perfection Get In the Way of Progress

By Steve Kane - July 15th, 2016

The Gemba Academy team is in a great position to interact with many lean practitioners around the world.  With a thousand or so subscribing organizations and presumably hundreds of thousands of Gemba Academy users, we’re able to see

GA 119 | How to Handle Skepticism with Brian Rotsaert

By Jessica Bush - July 14th, 2016

Today’s guest is Brian Rotsaert. Brian and Ron discussed Brian’s continuous improvement journey, including his experiences with coaching and mentoring over the years. An MP3 version of this episode is available for download

Back to the Beginning with Ohno, Suzuki, and Yoda

By Kevin Meyer - July 8th, 2016

As I was researching the remarkable similarities between Lean and Zen for my book, The Simple Leader, one of the most interesting – and meaningful – was the concept of the beginner’s mind. Taiichi Ohno said, “Ob

GA 118 | How to Use Lean and Zen to Become a Better Leader with Kevin Meyer

By Jessica Bush - July 7th, 2016

Today’s guest is our own Kevin Meyer, Co-Founder of Gemba Academy. Kevin and Ron discussed Kevin’s new book, The Simple Leader, in which Kevin describes his career thus far and shares a lot of valuable insight related to

GA 117 | How to Stay Motivated on Your Lean Journey with Dale Crownover

By Jessica Bush - June 30th, 2016

Today’s guest is Dale Crownover, the CEO of Texas Nameplate. Dale is one of the keynote speakers for the upcoming AME Conference in Dallas. He and Ron had a great conversation about his experience with continuous improvement, i

GA 116 | How to Use Storytelling with Jacob Stoller

By Jessica Bush - June 23rd, 2016

Today we are excited to have Jacob Stoller back on the podcast. Jacob and Ron discussed storytelling and how it can be extra powerful in a continuous improvement context. An MP3 version of this episode is available for download here. I

Safety In Numbers: What Message Are We Sending?

By Steve Kane - June 17th, 2016

Guest contribution by Jamie Parker “Don’t tell the team. I don’t want to be the reason our number goes back to zero.” These are the words a front-line team member shared with her plant manager after sustaining an injury. You se

GA 115 | Mastering Puppets with Filipe Marques

By Jessica Bush - June 16th, 2016

Today’s guest is Filipe Marques. Filipe has a very unique perspective on continuous improvement, and he shared some great examples of what he and his team do to stay on track. He even connected Metallica and lean. Don’t miss this o

GA 114 | How to Apply Lean to Healthcare with Mark Graban

By Jessica Bush - June 9th, 2016

Today’s episode features Mark Graban, a recurring podcast guest and good friend of Gemba Academy. Ron and Mark discussed lean healthcare, the third revision of Mark’s book Lean Hospitals, and some of the main misconceptio

How to Become a More Passionate Leader & Person

By Ron Pereira - June 3rd, 2016

Do you want to be part of an incredible culture at work? What about your personal life?  Well, in this article I’d like to explore a characteristic I believe to be extremely important for any person, or organization, seeking excelle

GA 113 | How to Utilize the Power Score with Jonathan Sands

By Jessica Bush - June 2nd, 2016

GA 112 | How to Pursue Greatness with Ron Pereira

By Jessica Bush - May 26th, 2016

Today’s episode features a keynote speech, “In Pursuit of Greatness,” delivered by our own Ron Pereira at the TWI Summit in San Antonio, Texas. As you’ll hear, he thoroughly enjoyed the conference and learned a

A Supervisor’s Strategy to Make Lean Stick

By Steve Kane - May 20th, 2016

By Steve Kane Michelle Trejo is a production supervisor for Specialty Silicone Fabricators, Inc. in Paso Robles, California.  She believes in Lean and she believes in her people.  Michelle has many leadership successes to her credit.

GA 111 | How to Teach Continuous Improvement with Dr. Bradley Miller

By Jessica Bush - May 19th, 2016

Today’s guest is Dr. Bradley Miller, a professor at the University of Houston. Brad explained to us how he teaches his students about continuous improvement, and how they then apply those skills to real life situations. An MP3

GA 109 | How to Leverage Toyota Kata with Brandon Brown

By Jessica Bush - May 5th, 2016

Today’s guest is Brandon Brown, the owner of Continuous Coaching Commitment LLC and an associate with the W3 Group LLC. Brandon shared his knowledge of Toyota Kata with us, and explained how it complements TWI. An MP3 version o

GA 108 | How to Use Job Relations to Solve Problems with Oscar Roche

By Jessica Bush - April 28th, 2016

Today’s guest is Oscar Roche, a Director at the TWI Institute Australia and Visual Workplace Australasia. Oscar and Ron discussed TWI, with a particular emphasis on the JR, or Job Relations component.  An MP3 version of this epi

GA 107 | How to Leverage TWI with Patrick Graupp

By Jessica Bush - April 21st, 2016

Today’s guest is Patrick Graupp, Senior Master Trainer at the TWI Institute. Patrick gave us an overview of TWI, or Training Within Industry, including a brief breakdown of the three main components. TWI is a very powerful tool

Inspiring a Bias for Action

By Steve Kane - April 15th, 2016

Jamie Parker practices Lean and is passionate about learning and sharing Lean leadership. She has 15 years’ experience in operations management / leadership across retail, service, and manufacturing environments. Jamie serves as

GA 106 | How to Understand the Nature of Transformation

By Jessica Bush - April 14th, 2016

Today’s guest is Dr. Darlene Dumont, the Public Service Program Director for LEI, or Lean Enterprise Institute. Darlene shared some of the projects she’s worked on throughout her impressive career and explained the value of