Taiichi Ohno Archives | Page 5 of 9

Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei, Part 4: It’s a Race to Get People to Think

By Jon Miller - January 10th, 2007

I came across a new quote from Taiichi Ohno recently. It was in Japanese, and may not be new to the world, but I can’t recall seeing it in English before. I think it nicely captures the idea of kaizen and respect for people, whic

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 37: The Standard Time Should be the Shortest Time

By Jon Miller - December 21st, 2006

“Speaking of standards, time study is another thing everyone gets wrong.” The typical time study is based on taking 10 times and setting an average time as the standard. Ohno says this is very bad because if you are watchin

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 36: Only the Gemba Can Do Cost Reduction

By Jon Miller - December 15th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by demonstrating the Toyota philosophy of “aim for 10X improvement, not 10% improvement”. He instructed Human Resources to give the shop floor 10 people even though they had asked for 100 peo

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 35: The Monaka System

By Jon Miller - December 10th, 2006

How many Japanese words do we have in the Lean lexicon? Do we really need another? It’s a rhetorical question, but would you rather have “sweet azuki bean jam wafer system”? I thought not. “Replaceable core syst

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 34: The Pitfall of Cost Calculation

By Jon Miller - December 1st, 2006

In this chapter Taiichi Ohno talks about the pitfalls of using cost calculation to justify new equipment purchases and also decisions to scrap or replace equipment based on depreciation. “Whenever we need to make a decision, we e

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 33: The Difference Between Production Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering

By Jon Miller - November 26th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by saying “We think of production engineering and manufacturing engineering as distinct things. We distinguish manufacturing engineering as the work to determine the method of manufacturing and pro

Taiichi Ohno’s Book “Workplace Management” Returns to Print in 2007

By Jon Miller - November 1st, 2006

Almost two years ago I set out to read Taiichi Ohno’s recently reissued book Gemba Keiei (Workplace Management) in Japanese and summarize one chapter per week. My goal was to have all 37 chapters posted here by September 2005. We

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 32: Operational Availability vs. Rate of Operation

By Jon Miller - October 20th, 2006

In this chapter Taiichi Ohno introduces another concept that is mixed up by people. It is the difference between operational availability and rate of operation. I introduced this concept in some depth in a previous post on this blog, a

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 31: There is a Correct Sequence to Kaizen

By Jon Miller - October 15th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno explains in this chapter that there is a correct sequence to kaizen, and it is as follows: 1) Manual work kaizen 2) Equipment kaizen 3) Process kaizen “Manual work kaizen means thinking of better ways of using the ex

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 30: Seiri Seiton Seiso Seiketsu Shitsuke

By Jon Miller - September 25th, 2006

“Seiri (Sorting) is throwing out what you don’t need and Seiton (Straighten) is arranging items so that they are ready when you want them. Arranging things neatly is only Seiretsu (lining up in rows) and proper shop floor m

Taiichi Ohno

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