Gemba Academy

What’s Faster: One Piece Flow or Mass Production? Watch This Envelope Stuffing Simulation To Find Out!

By Ron Pereira - July 29th, 2014

We recently re-shot the first video I ever created back in 2008. Specifically, this video shows the difference between one piece flow and mass production. I first learned of this simulation many years ago while reading the book Lean

We Have Met the Enemy

By Ron Pereira - July 21st, 2014

My 7-year-old son and I were recently driving together in the car. My son isn’t normally a big talker (his sisters more than make up for it… ha!) so we were engaged in some small talk while listening to the radio. Then, out

Why is “What is Lean?” ‘A Simple Question Without An Easy Answer’?

By Jon Miller - June 25th, 2014

This article refers to the Lean.org posting: ‘simple question without an easy answer?’ First of all, “what is lean?” is not a question whose answer can be qualified as “easy” or “hard&

The Secret to Lean Success in One Sentence

By Ron Pereira - June 16th, 2014

I was working on an office value stream map module for the refresh we’re doing to our Transforming your Value Streams course. During this module we share several questions that can be asked as team’s work to create an impro

Gemba Academy Culture Code – A Guide to the Way of Life at Gemba Academy

By Ron Pereira - June 9th, 2014

My business associates and I have been busy creating what we’re calling the “Gemba Academy Culture Code.” We’re sharing it with the world since we hope it gives everyone a better idea of what we’re strivin

How I Got to Inbox Zero and Have Maintained It For More Than One Month

By Ron Pereira - May 20th, 2014

My email inbox is currently at 0. Actually, no, that’s not right. My email inboxes are currently at 0. You see, I have three different inboxes configured within my Apple Mail – my main Gemba Academy inbox, my personal G

Lean Thinker Challenge #5

By Ron Pereira - May 5th, 2014

Welcome to another edition of the Lean Thinker Challenge! The Situation Your company has been on the lean journey for a little over a year… things have gone well and while there’s been some resistance to change most associ

My Final LSS Academy Post

By Ron Pereira - April 25th, 2014

I remember it like it was yesterday… it was January 2007 and I was sitting on my couch surfing the web while watching TV. I had just read a lean related blog article by my friend, Jon Miller, and wondered how hard it would be to

Is Home Depot’s Expedited Checkout Lean?

By Ron Pereira - March 31st, 2014

It’s warming up here in North Texas… as such businesses like Home Depot are EXTREMELY BUSY places. Yesterday I joined the crowd to buy some tomatoes and other vegetables to plant in our garden. And, yes, the checkout line

My Newest Stand Up Desk!

By Ron Pereira - January 23rd, 2014

Friends, I have a confession to make. In November of 2009 I wrote about my new stand up desk. I was quite proud of how I’d managed to prop an old desk up on some crates… I guess you could say I definitely used my wits over my w

Review of Value Stream Mapping by Karen Martin & Mike Osterling

By Jon Miller - January 14th, 2014

There have been several watershed moments in the development of Western consciousness and practice of Lean management over the past 25 years. Perhaps first was the arrival of Masaaki Imai, Chihiro Nakao and Yoshiki Iwata in Connecticut

Lean Thinker Challenge #4

By Ron Pereira - January 7th, 2014

Welcome to the first Lean Thinker Challenge of 2014! The Situation You’re the owner of a very successful manufacturing company. Your company began its lean journey 10 years ago and has realized tremendous benefits. In fact, lean thin

Review of Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein

By Jon Miller - December 17th, 2013

It’s a happy day when a favorite author-business philosophers integrates two favorite qualities into 121 concise pages. Edgar Schein has done this in Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. He argues simply a

What does ‘right first time’ mean in an R&D environment?

By Jon Miller - December 8th, 2013

Decades that have passed since anchoring principles of Lean have been published, reworded and republished, from Deming, Liker and others. Lean tools and their results abound, but Lean behaviors evidencing belief in these principles are

Why the Only Way to Think is Long-term

By Jon Miller - November 20th, 2013

Lean principles are hard to live by. It is far easier to use Lean methods to drive for and achieve results, cash in on performance incentives and leverage that success for a promotion or even a new job, quickly before the lack of susta

What Problem Are You Trying to Solve?

By Ron Pereira - November 15th, 2013

The most frequently asked question we receive at Gemba Academy goes something like this, “What videos should we watch first?” A close second is, “”What lean tools or philosophies should we focus on first?” How to Respond Of c

Lean Gurus Womack, Jones & Shook in 70-minute Video

By Jon Miller - November 14th, 2013

The Lean Enterprise Institute in cooperation with Gemba Academy has produced a free online 70-minute video discussion among Lean gurus and thought leaders James Womack, Dan Jones and John Shook. The 11 videos cover a range of themes in

Process, Results & the Anti-Portfolio

By Jon Miller - November 13th, 2013

What’s an “Anti-Portfolio”? It’s what students or organizational culture would call an artifact. The anti-portfolio is a collection of terrible decisions and costly mistakes, in the same way that a portfolio of

Does Jim Womack Regret Calling it “Lean”?

By Ron Pereira - November 13th, 2013

If they had to do it over again… would Jim Womack & Dan Jones still support calling it lean? And what did John Shook originally think about the book title “Learning to See?” Finally, what is the “Great Stagn

Gemba Online Learning Content Update

By Jon Miller - November 10th, 2013

Video-based Lean training pioneer Gemba Academy has steadily built up a library of learning modules over the past four years. With over 500 high definition videos that can be accessed via DVD or from ain internet connection, new conten

AME Toronto, Lean Accounting, and BMW X5 Seat Manufacturing!

By Ron Pereira - November 6th, 2013

We’ve been EXTREMELY busy over at Gemba Academy! Here’s a short list of what we’ve been up to: We talked all things lean with John Shook, Jim Womack, and Dan Jones at the recent AME conference in Toronto. This 70 mi

How to Engage People

By Jon Miller - November 4th, 2013

A recent Gallup poll showed that a whopping 70% of American workers were either not engaged or actively disengaged from their work. That’s about 70 million people who don’t care about or hate their job. More than the entire

It’s So Good Because It’s So Mutual

By Jon Miller - October 27th, 2013

Over the last couple of years both the application and meaning of “Lean” has been broadened, stretched, and even re-imagined quite a bit. This is largely thanks to its discovery and adoption by people from the software deve

Lean Thinker Challenge #3

By Ron Pereira - October 15th, 2013

Welcome to this week’s Lean Thinker Challenge! The Situation Your cousin, Shane, works for the NCAA and has been tasked with improving a critical aspect of the college football experience. Specifically, Shane has been asked to find a

What Culture Supports a Lean Startup Approach?

By Jon Miller - October 8th, 2013

Today I was fortunate to have the opportunity to sit in on a webinar titled Bringing Lean to Established Companies by lean startup gurus Eric Ries, Brant Cooper, and Patrick Vlaskovits. The webinar was not about bringing Lean per se bu

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