Lean Archives | Page 55 of 68

What Challenges Are You Facing?

By Ron Pereira - June 7th, 2011

A quick question… what challenges are you currently facing as it relates to building a culture of continuous improvement within your organization? These challenges can be related to people, processes, or anything else in between.

Gemba Glossary: 5S

By Ron Pereira - May 31st, 2011

Gemba Academy has started a new series of free videos called the Gemba Glossary. These short, normally less than 2 minutes, videos will offer definitions and explanations of key lean terms. The first video in this series is focused

Total Productive Maintenace (TPM) Overview

By Ron Pereira - May 9th, 2011

If your company relies on machines and/or equipment of any kind to satisfy customer demand chances are extremely high that Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) could benefit you. With this said, I’m excited to announce that Gemba A

Make Lean Work For You!

By Ron Pereira - April 21st, 2011

I just got off the phone with a gentleman struggling to apply lean concepts in his workplace. This person — let’s call him Jeff — works in a distribution environment meaning he doesn’t produce widgets for a living. One

Leader Standard Work – Part 1

By Ron Pereira - March 18th, 2011

Here is part 1 (of 7) of Gemba Academy’s Leader Standard Work course. If you’re reading this via email or RSS reader you’ll likely need to click through to the website in order to watch the video.

10 Tips to Immediately Boost Productivity

By Ron Pereira - March 10th, 2011

Are you struggling to be productive today? We’ve all been there. Here are 10 tips that, if implemented, will give you an instant boost! And be sure to check out the related posts below this one for additional ideas. Work your

Free Seminar: Using 3P to Support Healthcare Facility Design

By Ron Pereira - March 8th, 2011

Gemba Academy, in collaboration with the Kaizen Institute and Qualis Health, is proud to announce a free seminar focused on Using 3P to Support Healthcare Facility Design in Seattle, Washington on March 17, 2011. Please see the attache

Is Little Caesar’s Lean?

By Ron Pereira - March 7th, 2011

A few weeks ago we discussed whether the use of a dishwasher was lean or full of waste. Well, last night I needed to pick up some Little Caesar’s pizzas for my soccer team. I needed to order several pizzas and wondered how lo

Celebrating 2 Years of Gemba Academy

By Jon Miller - March 3rd, 2011

In March of 2009 Kevin Meyer, Ron Pereira and I launched Gemba Academy as a new way to help people learn about kaizen and lean. We had no idea what to expect when the site first went live. All of our forecasts were wrong. Initially we

Room Service Menus Gone Bad

By Jon Miller - February 24th, 2011

Telling the business traveler “you are in an inviable position” is bold but may not be the best way to sell freshly squeezed orange juice for 5 Euro per glass. The definition of “inviable” is “unable to su

Are Dishwashers Lean?

By Ron Pereira - February 21st, 2011

Doug, a reader of LSS Academy and Gemba Academy subscriber sent me the following question. I have some opinions but am very interested in what you all think of Doug’s question. Here is what Doug sent. Hi Ron, Does a dishwa

Where Excellence Fears to Tread

By Jon Miller - February 17th, 2011

In the latest e-letter from Lean Enterprise Institute CEO John Shook titled Toyota and Sudden Acceleration: Facts from the NASA Report, John draws a few deeper lessons about the Toyota Way and the Toyota Production System by reflecting

This is the worst it’s ever been

By Ron Pereira - February 10th, 2011

I’m typically a glass is half full kind of guy. But I also believe the phrase “This is the worst it’s ever been…” just may be the mission statement successful people and organizations live by. You se

Does Master Yoda Wisdom Contradict Lean Thinking?

By Ron Pereira - February 4th, 2011

In this famous Star Wars Dagobah swamp scene Master Yoda challenges Luke to raise his sunken starfighter with the power of his mind. I’ll Try Luke replies like many of us might when he says, “I’ll try.” Master Yoda then sco

Why Don’t We See More QC Circles?

By Jon Miller - January 24th, 2011

In the early 1990s I recall my Japanese sensei were absolutely appalled at the dearth of industrial engineers and production engineers within the ranks of the major American manufacturers who hired them as kaizen consultants. The cycle

Applying Lean at a Food Bank

By Ron Pereira - January 24th, 2011

** Updated Jan 13, 2017 ** It seems the original video linked in this blog article has been removed. Not to worry, we found another great video for you to enjoy! ** Original Post Below ** Hat tip to my friend, and business partner, K

3rd Annual Management Blog Review 2 of 2: The Lean Thinker

By Jon Miller - January 20th, 2011

Mark Rosenthal has a lot to think about. For the past several decades he has seen companies struggle, fail and succeed at implementing lean thinking. He has played a role in the success at Boeing, Terex and Eastman-Kodak to name just a

Standardization Video

By Ron Pereira - January 16th, 2011

This video focuses on the extremely important topic of Standardization. It’s also the first video of Gemba Academy’s latest course focused entirely on the lean concept of Standard Work. To learn more about this Standard Wor

My Take on Lean and Six Sigma Certifications

By Ron Pereira - January 13th, 2011

A few days ago I posed the question about whether exam based lean six sigma certifications were legitimate or frauds. As usual, many of you came through with excellent thoughts and comments. Some of you supported the idea, others argu

The Best of LSS Academy – 2010 Edition

By Ron Pereira - January 4th, 2011

As we welcome 2011 with open arms I thought I’d take this opportunity to reflect back on the year that was. In 2010 LSS Academy grew far faster than I could have ever expected as we reached more than 11,000 subscribers. Thank you! An

Why Hoshin Kanri?

By Ron Pereira - January 3rd, 2011

In this article we’ll continue our hoshin kanri series. In part 1 of this series we learned what the words hoshin kanri mean… so be sure to check that out if you haven’t already. Let’s Set Some Objectives! As we start 2011 many

Vote “YES” for the American Innovator

By Ron Pereira - December 13th, 2010

Paul Akers and Jon Lussier are lean thinking business leaders I admire immensely. For the past year they have brought their energy and enthusiasm for lean and business to the AM radio show called The American Innovator. This show run

Hoshin Kanri: Steel, Needles, Tubes, and Logic

By Ron Pereira - December 6th, 2010

Hoshin Kanri. Have you heard of it? If you’ve been around the lean world you likely have. Well, over the coming weeks I plan to cover the highlights of what hoshin kanri is and how you and your organization might best leverage it. In

The “Lean Group” Syndrome

By Ron Pereira - October 18th, 2010

I had a recent discussion with a relative who works in a large Chicago based hospital. As it turns out, this particular hospital is attempting to use lean to improve their processes. During our discussion I could tell something wasn’

Blog Action Day: Water

By Jon Miller - October 15th, 2010

Most of us take water for granted. It is colorless, tasteless and runs within, on or around our bodies every moment of our lives. Water flows and forms around obstacles, freezes and cracks the hardest stone, evaporates and floats away

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