Gemba Academy

For Built-In Quality, Simple Is Best

By Jon Miller - March 7th, 2006

As part of our Lean manufacturing benchmarking trip we visited a bus manufacturing plant in Japan with a group of aerospace executives on February 27, 2006. We spent 6 hours observing their Lean manufacturing operation in action. We as

The Takt Time for Your Question is 42 Seconds

By Jon Miller - March 5th, 2006

An interesting blurb in The Detroit News today titled For Toyota Briefing, Timing’s Everything gives an example how at Toyota “… the renowned Toyota Production System is not limited to making production leaner and mor

How Exactly Does Toyota Put People on the Balance Sheet as Assets?

By Jon Miller - March 2nd, 2006

Toyota executives are heard to say that “we put people on the balance sheet as assets” but I had taken this figuratively not literally (philosophy rather than accounting practice). At the moment I have no concrete evidence

Put People on the Balance Sheet

By Jon Miller - February 28th, 2006

According to a Trackback at the end of Bill Waddell’s latest inspiring post full of big ideas, there are only 27 hits on Google for the phrase Put People on the Balance Sheet. We’ll I’m adding #28. Thanks to the Flyin

Gemba Keiei Chapter 13: Improve Productivity Even with Reduced Volumes

By Jon Miller - February 24th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno pulls a lesson for Lean manufacturing out of the rice farming situation in the early 1980s in Japan. The government of Japan paid farmers to decrease the area used to cultivate rice in order to limit overproduction of rice

Work Hard, Complain, and Do Kaizen

By Jon Miller - February 23rd, 2006

The Director of Human Resources for one of our clients had an “ah-ha” moment about her role in supporting Lean manufacturing and how to combine kaizen with respect for people. After we benchmarked a company effectively involving ev

Better Safety and Ergonomics through Kaizen

By Jon Miller - February 22nd, 2006

How does kaizen improve safety and ergonomics? A February 21, 2006 article in Occupational Hazards titled Using Kaizen to Improve Safety and Ergonomics gives a good illustration. Citing a need for speedy resolution of safety issues and

Why GM and Ford Can’t Embrace the Toyota Way

By Jon Miller - February 16th, 2006

Who says they can’t? Dr. James Womack that’s who, in his article this week, titled Why Toyota Won. You can read it here if you have an online subscription to the WSJ or if you don’t, it’s reproduced here. I enjo

Experience Kaikaku, Day 5: What I Learned about Kaizen

By Jon Miller - February 10th, 2006

The reason we call this trip the Japan Kaikaku Experience is because this learning experience takes place in Japan and because a “kaikaku” or “transformation” happens in people’s heads by the end of the we

Experience Kaikaku, Day 4: The KTC Way

By Jon Miller - February 9th, 2006

One of the highlights of this Japan Kaikaku Experience trip was the visit to KTC. This company has more than 40 years of history making strong, high quality hand tools. They supply tire wrenches for new Toyota cars and they also make t

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