Gemba Academy

Process, Result and Value for the Community

By Jon Miller - October 6th, 2013

Last week I had the opportunity to speak in front of group of people learning and leading continuous improvement paired with respect for humanity, at the Lean HR Summit. One of myths of Lean that I attempted to bust was that the prime

Lean Thinker Challenge #2

By Ron Pereira - October 2nd, 2013

Well, it’s safe to say our first Lean Thinker Challenge was a hit… as of a few minutes ago there were 56 comments. Thank you to all of you who joined the conversation! Now, let’s get to this week’s Lean Thinker Challenge! The S

Kaizen Song: Come All You A3 Thinkers

By Jon Miller - September 29th, 2013

Based on “Come All You Coal Miners”, this is the kaizen song… Come All You A3 Thinkers Come all you A3 thinkers wherever you may be And learn of a storyline, from circles of QC The name is nothing special, but its ste

The Man Who Saved Kaizen

By Jon Miller - September 20th, 2013

It is with love and gratitude that we remember Eiji Toyoda, the man who forever changed how the world improves the way we work. He passed on this week, aged 100. He engineered the successful Toyota-GM join venture in California known a

OH NO You Didn't Really Say That!

By Jon Miller - September 16th, 2013

It pains me to even write these words again: “All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that time line by removing the

Lean Thinker Challenge #1

By Ron Pereira - September 12th, 2013

OK, so I thought I’d start a new, hopefully fun, series of articles called the Lean Thinker Challenge. This is the first edition! The Situation You’ve just been hired as the VP of Operations for a 200 person manufacturing

8 More Lean Concept Clarifications

By Jon Miller - September 12th, 2013

Everyday conversations with lean learners and lean practitioners make me think that this problem of the erosion of meaning, or even extensions of transference is not unique to A3 thinking. In fact we could list lightly-learned or misin

The Great A3 Thinking Fallacy

By Jon Miller - September 8th, 2013

What lean or six sigma practitioner doesn’t love A3 thinking? It’s versatile, low-tech, and seemingly easy to learn and teach. The trouble is that just about every plan or report or problem solving summary on a page is gett

Why Organizational Culture is a Monster

By Jon Miller - August 20th, 2013

Organizational culture matters because culture makes the difference between whether we execute good ideas or not. Good ideas abound, but the world sorely lacks in evidence for the increase in the adoption and long-term follow-through o

The ABCs of Organizational Culture

By Jon Miller - August 15th, 2013

Like the light of our sun on the dark side of the moon, the light of critical inquiry falls too rarely on organizational culture during a lean startup launch or a lean enterprise transformation. We have made organizational culture, its

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Artifacts of Cultural Assumptions

By Jon Miller - August 13th, 2013

Clear and effective visual controls need to alert the viewer of normal versus abnormal conditions and/or provide guidance towards acting in accordance to the norm or standard. The street sign above is provided by the Tokyo metropolitan

Why Workarounds Happen

By Jon Miller - August 8th, 2013

A recent experience while attempting to depart from an equatorial country made me reflect on why workarounds happen. As I checked in to my flight, the airline staff asked to see my yellow fever card while entering my passport informati

Standard Work for Astronauts

By Jon Miller - July 30th, 2013

Here is a good example of standard work for knowledge workers. Astronauts are probably some of the best educated and best trained people on the planet (and off-planet for that matter). Those of us who think that we can’t have dai

Was Steve Jobs a Lean Thinker?

By Ron Pereira - July 29th, 2013

Can Continuous Improvement methodologies such as Lean & Six Sigma help companies innovate? Or, as some argue, does practicing continuous improvement actually stifle innovation? I’d argue authentic continuous improvement can most

Learn How I’ve Leveraged Both Lean & Six Sigma Throughout my Career

By Ron Pereira - July 23rd, 2013

I was recently interviewed by Mark Graban over at LeanBlog.org. The theme of the interview is how I’ve successfully leveraged both lean and six sigma throughout my career. Specifically Mark and I explored: What my views are on

10 Characteristics of Great Coaches & Learners

By Ron Pereira - July 15th, 2013

Throughout my professional career I’ve been fortunate enough to learn – and teach others – about leadership, lean, and six sigma. As I reflect back, I believe I’ve uncovered some characteristics of what makes a good coa

Contradiction in Terms? Lean Buffet

By Jon Miller - July 14th, 2013

I had the occasion to dine at the Golden Jaguar Buffet in Shanghai. Buffets are seldom the places to observe Lean practices in any way or form, but the Jaguar offered a few things of note. First, the place setting at the tables contain

Keep Calm & Improve On – Free Desktop Wallpaper

By Ron Pereira - June 26th, 2013

Our design team just created some pretty cool desktop wallpaper with the words: Keep Calm & Improve On! If you like it, and want to use it as a friendly reminder to “improve on,” please feel free to download the images

Review of Conversational Capacity by Craig Weber

By Jon Miller - June 24th, 2013

My latest recommended reading for people who care about getting things done is Conversational Capacity: The Secret to Building Successful Teams That Perform When the Pressure Is On (McGraw-Hill, 2013) by Craig Weber. Pressure being off

George and the Amazing One-piece Flow Meal Truck

By Jon Miller - June 23rd, 2013

This YouTube video titled “Meals Per Hour”, tells the story of volunteers applying kaizen to improve the delivery of meals to Superstorm Sandy victims. Toyota volunteers teach food bank staff how to improve through focused,

5 Powerful Techniques for Dealing with Setbacks or Total Failure

By Ron Pereira - June 11th, 2013

Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right. -Henry Ford It’s 9:25 PM on a Friday night and I’m currently sitting in the Seattle Tacoma airport due to my flight being delayed. Latest estimates have me arriving home in Dall

Review of Perfecting Patient Journeys

By Jon Miller - May 13th, 2013

Perfecting Patient Journeys by Judy Worth, Tom Shuker, Beau Keyte, Karl Ohaus, Jim Luckman, David Verble, Kirk Paluska, Todd Nickel and Sam Watson is the latest in a series of practical workbooks from the Lean Enterprise Institute. Thi

How Do You Document Your Processes?

By Ron Pereira - May 13th, 2013

At Gemba Academy we’re constantly doing our best to “practice what we teach.” Now, to be honest, we’re far from perfect (who is?) but we’re always trying to find better ways to take care of our customers and develop better pr

Going to Gemba vs. Statistical Analysis

By Ron Pereira - May 6th, 2013

Early in my professional career I worked as a Process Engineer at Nokia (in their mobile phone division). I had many responsibilities but, ultimately, my most important job centered on ensuring all of the equipment was producing cell p

Is it Worth the Time to Kaizen This?

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2013

If you have ever wondered, “is it worth the time to kaizen this?” here is your guide to answer that question. It’s from a strictly mathematical point of view, and keep in mind this is assuming five-year payback, so ad

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