Lean Archives | Page 66 of 68

Stop Moving and Start Working

By Ron Pereira - May 28th, 2007

In Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management we read about the difference between animal-like-motion and human work. Simply put many people confuse moving around with working. This is to say that we can work up a sweat and look as

Free TPS Video

By Ron Pereira - May 26th, 2007

Click here to watch a free video of Dr. Shankar Basu, president and CEO of Toyota Material Handling, USA. This is NOT a sales pitch so don’t worry. Dr. Basu even speaks about reducing transportation, which he half jokes will

Does Toyota need Six Sigma?

By Ron Pereira - May 23rd, 2007

I bet the title of this post caught some of my Lean friends off guard. Fear not I am not going to talk about how Lean is about eliminating waste and Six Sigma is about reducing variation. I have said this before and regret it. T

Boeing starts assembly of 787 Dreamliner

By Ron Pereira - May 22nd, 2007

I read today that Boeing started production of the much anticipated 787 Dreamliner. Many of my fellow blogging friends have previously commented on the method by which Boeing is manufacturing this monster of an airplane. With this s

Lean and Tissue Donation

By Ron Pereira - May 21st, 2007

I came across an interesting article from the Dayton Daily News where they discussed how leaders of the Community Blood Center/Community Tissue Services teamed up with Lean practitioners from Sinclair Community College. The article e

Finance 101 by Taiichi

By Ron Pereira - May 18th, 2007

In Chapter Six of Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management we read about the Profit formulas. I must confess I thought I completely understood this concept when in fact I was only partly correct. Let’s explore it tonight. When we

Riding a Bike

By Ron Pereira - May 14th, 2007

This weekend my 4 year old daughter learned to ride her bike without training wheels. She has been after me for quite awhile to let her have a shot but I have been hesitant. I just didn’t think she was ready. But after she saw her 5

Misconceptions

By Ron Pereira - May 13th, 2007

The first several chapters of Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management spend a lot of time discussing misconceptions. Ohno said: “Very often after we try we find that the results are completely opposite of what we expected, and this is

Waiting in US Immigrations Line

By Ron Pereira - May 12th, 2007

I have really enjoyed learning more about the Queuing Theory from our friend, Peter Abilla, over at the excellent shmula blog. Peter’s most recent post is about the Queuing Psychology at the Gus Pump. Yesterday I traveled home from E

Could Work Kill You?

By Ron Pereira - May 8th, 2007

I am a frequent flier and thus read lots of airplane magazines. One of the better mags of the sky is American Way from American Airlines. The May issue is about all things Asia. There are several good articles but the one that really c

Outsourcing versus Offshoring

By Ron Pereira - May 6th, 2007

It seems like every time I turn around there is a new survey. One says Lean rocks, one says almost everyone that tries Lean fails, and one says Dilbert ruined Six Sigma. OK, this last one is stretching it a bit. Maybe. Well just today

Standards, Abnormality and the Ideal

By Jon Miller - May 3rd, 2007

The topic of warusa kagen led to some interesting further thought. The following statements are all true: 1. When work is performed in the absence of a standard, this is an abnormality 2. When standards exist but are not being followed

Wanna Be Lean? Buy Some Carousels.

By Ron Pereira - May 3rd, 2007

I recently came across an article that irritated me. The gist of its message is that once all the “easy stuff” with Lean is taken care of… you know like respecting people, improving quality, and pulling material through t

Repent, I mean Hansei!

By Ron Pereira - May 2nd, 2007

I never seem to stop learning from my friend Jon Miller. I wanted to write a post about hansei and thus decided to dig around to see what other bloggers had to say on the topic. I typed hansei into Google and mid way through the firs

Bad Management

By Ron Pereira - April 27th, 2007

After submitting my post last night I wondered if my overly optimistic attitude was unrealistic. Only one person has commented on the post and this person seemed to think I was off my rocker a bit. I also got to thinking of the recent

Complainers Wear Me Out

By Ron Pereira - April 26th, 2007

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people constantly complain about how management or some authoritative body (i.e. government official, church leader, etc.) is doing them wrong. These people, you likely know a few, usually complain

Lean Landscaping

By Ron Pereira - April 23rd, 2007

Some people say mixing Lean and Six Sigma with your home life is wrong. I couldn’t disagree more. I mean come on… are we supposed to just stop trying to make things better after leaving the plant? That makes no sense to me a

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By Ron Pereira - April 22nd, 2007

My wife and I have been blessed with 3 kid’s ages 4, 2, and 8 months. One of things we have always done is read to them – a lot. We read to them before bed and many times before naps. Today, before naps my 4 year old asked me

TOC Bottleneck versus Lean Pacemaker – Part 2

By Ron Pereira - April 19th, 2007

Last night we discussed the main tenets of TOC. Tonight we will introduce the Lean Pacemaker showing how it may not always be the constraint in our system. This, my friends, is where the TOC and Lean proponents often “bow up̶

TOC Bottleneck versus Lean Pacemaker – Part 1

By Ron Pereira - April 18th, 2007

Tonight I am starting a 2 part series contrasting the Theory of Constraints with Lean Manufacturing. Specifically, I want to discuss the differences between a TOC “bottleneck” and a Lean Manufacturing “pacemaker.” I have seen T

Playing Fast – American Football and Lean

By Ron Pereira - April 11th, 2007

I am a big, OK fanatical, Ohio State University football (American football) fan. I grew up in Ohio and as my Mom says, “You can take the boy out of Ohio, but you can’t take Ohio out of the boy.” I grew up watching Ohio State pla

Jidoka – The Forgotten Pillar

By Ron Pereira - April 9th, 2007

In the Toyota Production System house there are two pillars. The one pillar most of the books are written about is JIT. You know all the fun stuff about one piece flow and pull. But there is an entire other pillar that, in my opinion

The Airline Companies Amaze Me

By Ron Pereira - April 8th, 2007

In Lean and Six Sigma we speak about the importance of understanding value from the perspective of the customer. If you miss this all the Kanban and Control Charts in the world won’t help you. Most of the airline companies in

Un-Lean Lean Companies

By Ron Pereira - April 6th, 2007

I recently purchased some Value Stream Mapping software and got a kick out the experience. Here I was buying software to help me battle waste and inefficiency, right? Well I go to this company’s website and click “buy now” next t

Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED)

By Ron Pereira - April 4th, 2007

One of the core principles to making a Lean system work is Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED). You may also hear it referred to as “Quick Changeover” especially in western companies. Common Misconceptions Contrary to what some t

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