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Gemba Academy Culture Code – A Guide to the Way of Life at Gemba Academy

By Ron Pereira - June 9th, 2014

My business associates and I have been busy creating what we’re calling the “Gemba Academy Culture Code.” We’re sharing it with the world since we hope it gives everyone a better idea of what we’re strivin

GA 006 | Exploring Why So Many Companies Struggle to Fully Embrace Continuous Improvement with Bill Waddell

By Ron Pereira - May 15th, 2014

In this episode, I’m joined by one of the most experienced lean thinkers I know.  Bill Waddell is a lean author, blogger, and consultant. Bill is, without doubt, one of the most interesting and, some might even say, controversia

GA 005 | Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation with Karen Martin

By Ron Pereira - May 8th, 2014

In this episode, I’m joined by one of the most passionate lean thinkers I’ve ever met – Karen Martin. During this podcast, Karen and I explore the topic of Value Stream Mapping. Specifically, Karen and I have an excel

GA 004 | Leveraging the Toyota Kata Approach to Learning & Coaching with Michael Lombard

By Ron Pereira - May 8th, 2014

During this podcast Michael Lombard and I explore the Toyota Kata topic. Michael, a long time lean thinker, is the Director of Operational Excellence at a major hospital here in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Specifically, during this sho

GA 003 | Learn What Joyfulness and Lean Thinking Have in Common with Richard Sheridan

By Ron Pereira - May 1st, 2014

How much joy and happiness do you, and your colleagues, feel each and every day?  Are you excited to come to work or do you dread it?   No matter your answer… if you’re interested in learning how to create a more exciting

GA 002 | Learning, Focus, and Innovation with Matthew May

By Ron Pereira - April 30th, 2014

Welcome to Episode 2 of the Gemba Academy podcast! In this episode, I’m joined by Matt May.  Matt is an incredible lean thinker who specializes in helping companies innovate. Originally, Matt and I were planning to talk about an

What Problem Are You Trying to Solve?

By Ron Pereira - November 15th, 2013

The most frequently asked question we receive at Gemba Academy goes something like this, “What videos should we watch first?” A close second is, “”What lean tools or philosophies should we focus on first?” How to Respond Of c

Does Jim Womack Regret Calling it “Lean”?

By Ron Pereira - November 13th, 2013

If they had to do it over again… would Jim Womack & Dan Jones still support calling it lean?  And what did John Shook originally think about the book title “Learning to See?”  Finally, what is the “Great Stagn

Lean Thinker Challenge #2

By Ron Pereira - October 2nd, 2013

Well, it’s safe to say our first Lean Thinker Challenge was a hit… as of a few minutes ago there were 56 comments. Thank you to all of you who joined the conversation! Now, let’s get to this week’s Lean Thinker Challenge! The S

Lean Thinker Challenge #1

By Ron Pereira - September 12th, 2013

OK, so I thought I’d start a new, hopefully fun, series of articles called the Lean Thinker Challenge.  This is the first edition! The Situation You’ve just been hired as the VP of Operations for a 200 person manufacturing

Was Steve Jobs a Lean Thinker?

By Ron Pereira - July 29th, 2013

Can Continuous Improvement methodologies such as Lean & Six Sigma help companies innovate? Or, as some argue, does practicing continuous improvement actually stifle innovation? I’d argue authentic continuous improvement can most

10 Characteristics of Great Coaches & Learners

By Ron Pereira - July 15th, 2013

Throughout my professional career I’ve been fortunate enough to learn – and teach others – about leadership, lean, and six sigma. As I reflect back, I believe I’ve uncovered some characteristics of what makes a good coa

5 Powerful Techniques for Dealing with Setbacks or Total Failure

By Ron Pereira - June 11th, 2013

Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right. -Henry Ford It’s 9:25 PM on a Friday night and I’m currently sitting in the Seattle Tacoma airport due to my flight being delayed. Latest estimates have me arriving home in Dall

How Do You Document Your Processes?

By Ron Pereira - May 13th, 2013

At Gemba Academy we’re constantly doing our best to “practice what we teach.” Now, to be honest, we’re far from perfect (who is?) but we’re always trying to find better ways to take care of our customers and develop better pr

Going to Gemba vs. Statistical Analysis

By Ron Pereira - May 6th, 2013

Early in my professional career I worked as a Process Engineer at Nokia (in their mobile phone division). I had many responsibilities but, ultimately, my most important job centered on ensuring all of the equipment was producing cell p

The Problem with A3 Reports

By Ron Pereira - April 22nd, 2013

The A3 report may be one of the most misunderstood lean thinking tools of our time. Why do I say this? Simple. It’s Just a Piece of Paper The A3 report, in and of itself, is nothing more than a piece of paper. But, for some reaso

A Factory of One

By Ron Pereira - April 26th, 2012

If you missed our most recent webinar called “A Factory of One” you can watch a replay of it here. It was excellent and I highly recommend you take the time to check it out. It’s free to view until May 15, 2012.  Aft

Perseverance & PDCA

By Ron Pereira - March 13th, 2012

“Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). The ability to persevere through the tough times we experience as lean and six sigma practitioners is extremely important. In fact, the ability to persev

And with your spirit

By Ron Pereira - January 3rd, 2012

Roman Catholics around the word recently saw a huge change to the way Mass is celebrated. Specifically, there were several changes to the prayers we say. For example, prior to the change if you walked up to any Catholic and said, “Th

The Courage to Try

By Ron Pereira - December 1st, 2011

I was recently speaking with a Gemba Academy customer who’s looking to start a small lean consulting company. I’ll call this person Bob for the sake of this article. About Bob Bob explained that he doesn’t have a college degree b

How to Not Demotivate People

By Ron Pereira - October 31st, 2011

Here is a short, but excellent, video on how to not demotivate workers. The person speaking is Jim Collins, author of the bestseller Good to Great. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on whether you agree with everything Mr. Col

Training Wheels

By Ron Pereira - August 30th, 2011

My son, who just turned 5 years old, recently taught me a valuable lesson. Like most young people my boy was itching to take the training wheels off his bicycle. We had told him that Daddy would take the training wheels off this weeke

3 Things You Can Do When Your Manager Doesn’t Support Continuous Improvement

By Ron Pereira - August 2nd, 2011

We lean bloggers like to preach the importance of senior management support as it relates to continuous improvement. To be sure, having senior management support is extremely important and without it the hill to continuous improvement

Help! No Management Support!

By Ron Pereira - July 19th, 2011

Most will agree that having top management support is crucial to succeeding at any form of continuous improvement – lean, six sigma, TOC, etc. But what happens when management isn’t behind the employees who are attempting to use le

3 Ways to Break Through Productivity Ruts

By Ron Pereira - July 12th, 2011

We’ve all been there… stuck in rut. Unmotivated. Bored. Possibly even a bit down in the dumps. And, to be sure, when we’re in this dip it’s easy for our personal productivity to hit rock bottom. With this said, here are 3 thing

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