Lean Office Archives | Page 8 of 12

Gemba Research Office Layout Kaizen #11

By Jon Miller - February 11th, 2010

Over the past week we have been chipping away at some office kaizen at the Gemba Research office near Seattle. The major activities so far have included a layout change, some 5S and other small improvements. In the 6 years that we have

Agile Kanban Journal Day 200: Small is Beautiful

By Jon Miller - January 8th, 2010

Last June I began using what many in the software development community are calling an agile kanban board to track, and ideally to speed up, work on my various projects. The biggest benefit from this so far has been to keep the proble

How to Build the Road Warrior’s Stand Up Desk

By Jon Miller - November 29th, 2009

Where there is a will there is a way. I learned that lesson again. Yesterday I was complaining to myself about being unproductive, chalking it up to a 1:40am flight, the weather, and the uncomfortable chair at the desk in my hotel room

A mother and daughter shopping in a grocery store

Genchi Genbutsu on the Retail Floor

By Jon Miller - September 14th, 2009

The September 14, 2009 Wall Street Journal article Seeing Store Shelves Through Senior Eyes explains how retailers are applying the TPS principle of genchi genbutsu (go to the floor and see what’s really going on) in redesigning

The e-mail gemba

By Jon Miller - September 10th, 2009

There is a lot to like about e-mail. Without its widespread adoption starting about 15 years ago I would not have kept in touch with many old friends. I can still remember writing letters, by hand, and waiting… E-mail has allowed

Energy Treasure Hunt at the Grocery Store

By Jon Miller - August 30th, 2009

The energy treasure hunt at the grocery store is almost too easy. The bright lights, cooling or refrigeration of a large stock of items year-round, heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, the places we go to buy our f

Agnosia: Losing the Ability to See the Obvious

By Jon Miller - August 24th, 2009

In order to succeed at leading anything that involves people, one needs to know a lot about people. This is especially true when it comes to lean manufacturing, lean retail, lean distribution, lean healthcare or whatever you prefer to

Why Should I Mark My Cupboards!?

By Jon Miller - August 17th, 2009

Ronak has been successful with 5S in the factory but is facing challenges with 5S in the office. He said in a follow-up to the post on 5S guidelines for the office: “Only problem is in personalized cabins, where there are lots of

5S Guidelines for the Office

By Jon Miller - August 12th, 2009

Jonathan asked: “Hi Jon, Recently, I was tasked to head a 5S project here in our department (Purchasing) but I have limited knowledge on what is applicable and what should be implemented. I was thinking that some guidelines could

The Lean Buzz at Starbucks

By Jon Miller - August 4th, 2009

In the past when the training venue was not close to gemba, I have used a trip to the Starbucks as a teaching tool for value stream mapping, waste observation, even drawing spaghetti diagrams. Based on the news in the Wall Street Journ

Agile Kanban Journal Day 30: Show the Flow!

By Jon Miller - July 22nd, 2009

When agile kanban meets kaizen, only good things can happen. Yesterday was day 30 of my agile kanban board usage. Having been on the road much of the last month I haven’t had a lot of time to think about appropriate metrics, targ

The 1950s Movie Guide to Lean Service

By Jon Miller - July 15th, 2009

Ah, those irony-free halcyon days of naming films for what they were… The challenges facing the service business attempting to practice lean principles bear an uncanny similarity to those confronting the hero of a bad 1950s scien

Agile Kanban Journal Day 8: Do We Need a “Done” Column?

By Jon Miller - June 29th, 2009

I continue to benefit from the use of my Agile kanban board, if nothing else to keep my supposedly most important tasks in front of me (or behind me as it were, per layout of the office). I have faith and confidence that using this met

Agile Kanban Journal: Kaizens on Day 1

By Jon Miller - June 22nd, 2009

Kaizen emphasizes making small changes every day and retaining the ones that bring positive outcomes. With the help of friends, my agile kanban board evolved on its first day of use. After organizing my projects and tasks on an erasabl

Trying Out My Agile Kanban Board

By Jon Miller - June 19th, 2009

One of the biggest challenges of doing kaizen in office work is to make the work itself visible so that waste can be clearly identified. Much of the time spent in office work is finding files or information, switching between tasks, fi

Go See the Visual Management Blog

By Jon Miller - April 10th, 2009

If you are looking for practical examples of visual controls for managing work in an office, go see the Visual Management Blog written by Xavier Quesada Allue, a software developer, Agile coach and project manager, it is full of photos

How to Stretch 90 Second of Work to 2,700 Seconds

By Jon Miller - January 26th, 2009

Sometimes it seems like the most difficult part of helping some companies implement lean is sorting out the various legal and purchasing details to finally get a signed contract. While the whole process can seem bureaucratic and non va

Live Like Einstein, Operate Like Toyota

By Jon Miller - January 10th, 2009

We might say that Albert Einstein was the ultimate knowledge worker. He had a prolific brain which not only produced ideas which bent our understanding of space and time, he made it possible to blow up the world. He advanced our knowle

The Essential Lean Blogosphere of 2008

By Jon Miller - January 8th, 2009

Welcoming A New Voice As one of the elder statesmen of the lean community, John Shook is an important new voice to join the lean blogosphere in 2008. In this weekly post he takes a deep look at what give Toyota strength and flexibility

How to Measure Knowledge Worker Productivity, Part 3

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2008

How do we measure the productivity of knowledge workers? One can feel the creative juices ebbing away just thinking about this question. So we’ll skip Part 2 and go directly to Part 3. Why not measure knowledge worker productivit

How to Measure Knowledge Worker Productivity, Part 1

By Jon Miller - August 26th, 2008

A little while ago I heard the comment, “If I could figure that out I would be a millionaire,” in regard o the question, “How to measure knowledge worker productivity?” This doesn’t seem like such a challe

Boeing Volunteers Helping Non-profits with Lean

By Jon Miller - April 23rd, 2008

An article in the April 18-12, 2008 issue of the Puget Sound Business Journal caught our eye. Titled Penguins will benefit from jet maker’s efficiency lessons, it describes the efforts of Boeing employees as lean trainers who hav

Breaking Down Barriers to Continuous Flow

By Jon Miller - January 28th, 2008

One way to look at lean is that it’s all about enabling the continuous flow of actions, information, materials, services and cash in such a way that these things generate of goodness, however you may define that. The theory is th

16 More Ways to See Motion Waste when Standing in the Circle

By Jon Miller - January 21st, 2008

The stand in the circle activity is a great way to train your eyes to see waste on your gemba. Finding 30 small kaizen ideas in 30 minutes, and rapidly implementing at least one of those ideas is a practical and scalable way of teachin

Direct Instruction, Standardized Work and Kaizen

By Jon Miller - December 2nd, 2007

I learned about something called Direct Instruction in chapter seven of Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres. This book is a light and entertaining read on statistics and evidence-based decisions in marketing, education, healthcare and governm

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