Lean

1564 Articles

One Year of Blogging!

By Ron Pereira - December 30th, 2007

Close to one year ago I started this little blog with the post Lean or Six Sigma?. Truth be told I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing (and am still learning) but knew I loved to write. I also knew I loved teaching people about lean a

OEE – Not Just for TPM Programs!

By Ron Pereira - December 20th, 2007

If someone were to force me into a corner and only allow me to use one metric in my plant I would have to choose Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). The reason I would pick it is simple… it is really 3 metrics in one! Here is a qu

Reader Question: Project Handoffs

By Ron Pereira - December 12th, 2007

A reader of the blog recently sent me the following question. Ron, I have a question. Here at my “office” we’ve been doing LSS for about two years now. After a successful Green/Black belt project completion we “

Are Suggestion “Boxes” the Best Way to Go?

By Ron Pereira - December 11th, 2007

A recent post by my friend Jon Miller got me thinking about suggestion boxes. For those unaware many companies ask their employees to submit improvement ideas into a box. Management then looks at the ideas and in some cases acts on the

Continuous Improvement Begins with You!

By Ron Pereira - December 5th, 2007

One of the things that drives me batty is how hard some people make continuous improvement. Some think you have to go to 2 or 4 weeks of training to make something better. Some think if you don’t have a green or black belt you are no

No Standards No Kaizen

By Ron Pereira - December 3rd, 2007

I don’t know the exact quote and I am 38,000 feet in the air (I am flying home from London) so I can’t look it up… but Taiichi Ohno once said something like, “Without standards there can be no kaizen.” What does this mean? We

I am Addicted to Kaizen

By Ron Pereira - November 29th, 2007

Hi, my name is Ron and I am addicted to kaizen. I was first introduced to kaizen years ago and while I did like it I didn’t go overboard.  I worked on a few point kaizen events but never really accomplished more than some nice

Two Types of Kaizen

By Ron Pereira - October 28th, 2007

The word kaizen is fast becoming a buzz word galore.  You will hear about how people are “doing kaizen” or running a big “kaizen event” next week. Many times folks are in fact executing kaizen’s in an att

The Right Inventory is an Asset!

By Ron Pereira - October 19th, 2007

Most lean practitioners, myself included, spend lots of time talking about how calling inventory an asset is hog wash.  We use analogies like how lowering inventory is the same as lowering water in a river… eventually all those

Things to Leave Behind When Jumping Out of Airplanes

By Jon Miller - October 10th, 2007

Flying west on Sichuan Airlines today I saw the most bizarre in-flight safety video. The cartoon character flight attendant was the star of the show, with a video bubble of a real person explaining in sign language, while passable Engl

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