Gemba Academy Blog

The Global Food Waste Scandal

By Jon Miller - September 28th, 2012

“Stop wasting food. Thank you very much.” So ends the TED talk by Tristram Stuart titled The global food waste scandal. Pictured above, Tristram stands behind a mound of perfectly edible but imperfectly shaped bananas, one

5 Critical Control Chart Characteristics You May Not Be Aware Of

By Ron Pereira - September 25th, 2012

No matter if you call yourself a “lean practitioner” or “six sigma practitioner” or some combination of the two… one “tool” you should have a deep understanding of is the control chart. I’ve written about control charts

Visualizing the Benefit of Small Improvement Steps

By Jon Miller - September 21st, 2012

One of the foundational principles of kaizen is that one takes many small steps toward the ideal condition, continually. The strength of this approach is that by keeping the steps small it is both psychologically and physically easier

Kaizen Song: Writing Solid Problem Statements

By Jon Miller - September 17th, 2012

This kaizen song about 99 problems was inspired by an ingenious contest to mash-up Lean memes and American pop culture by author, blogger and consultant Mark Graban. Here is… Writing Solid Problem Statements (melody – ̶

Innovation is Nothing but ECRS

By Jon Miller - August 21st, 2012

Kirby Ferguson explains in a TED video that Everything is a remix. What seems new is actually something old, but changed. This is a familiar idea in the continuous improvement field, and a place of significant overlap with the nuts and

Hack Days, 20% Time and Kaizen Events

By Jon Miller - August 9th, 2012

The 20%Doctrine How Tinkering, Goofing Off, and Breaking the Rules at Work Drive Success in Business by Ryan Tate introduces the concept of “hack days” popularized by software development teams within companies such as Goog

Hoshin Kanri as Both Strategy and Meta-strategy

By Jon Miller - August 3rd, 2012

Meta is one of my favorite four-letter words. People don’t use it often enough. Being meta is what makes ideas curl back upon themselves, thereby enriching our understanding of them. For example there is meta-emotion (our feeling

Five Key Change Lessons from Poor Economics by Banerjee and Duflo

By Jon Miller - July 8th, 2012

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo is full of fact-based insights on the lives of 865 millions people living on less than $0.99, and how to improve them. The aut

Remove Waste, Uncover Individual Human Beings

By Jon Miller - July 5th, 2012

Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management was originally published in 1982, following his first book, Toyota Production System which came out in 1978. In the preface to the 1987 English language version of Workplace Management, Taiichi

The Neglected Art and Science of Organization (re)Design

By Jon Miller - July 3rd, 2012

I follow three simple rules whenever looking at an organization chart with a view to improving its effectiveness. First, remove structural causes of delay or loss in information and decision flow wherever possible. Second, decrease spa

World Peace through 5S

By Jon Miller - July 2nd, 2012

Congratulations to Kaizen Institute Romania, KI Japan for the 2nd successful “5S in the City” event. In cooperation with the Japanese non-profit organization 日本を美しくする会 (Organization to Clean Up Japan), a t

Placing a Popular Taiichi Ohno Quote in Context

By Jon Miller - June 24th, 2012

There is a popular quote by Taiichi Ohno which has always bothered me. Unless you are completely new to Lean, you’ve seen it. “All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to

Kaizen Transformation Update from Procon Engineering

By Jon Miller - June 4th, 2012

We have shared updates on the kaizen journey at Procon Engineering of Karachi, Pakistan from time to time (TPM story, COPQ story). S.M. Junaid has been very patient with me over the past few months, sending me news which I have not pos

Go to Gembanana

By Jon Miller - June 2nd, 2012

The Wall Street Journal article titled Five Lessons From the Banana Man introduces us to the practical business wisdom of Samuel Zemurray, the former head of the United Fruit Company. The article is a good reminder that so-called Lean

4 Cloud Based Tools That Have Dramatically Increased my Personal Productivity

By Ron Pereira - May 24th, 2012

As a business owner, husband, and father of 5 amazing children time is not something I have a lot of. As such, being able to stay focused and productive is extremely important. A few months ago I realized I was not being as effective a

Where is Your Suggestion Box?

By Jon Miller - May 15th, 2012

The placement of a suggestion box within an organization speaks volumes about their level of commitment and sophistication in pursuing customer service, quality and continuous improvement. The example above was in the lobby of a county

How is PDCA Inimical to Innovation?

By Jon Miller - May 8th, 2012

PDCA. Plan, Do, Check, Act. This process is at the core of kaizen, lean, six sigma, continuous improvement, hoshin kanri, the scientific method and the learning organization. I also believe that the PDCA cycle is inherent to the creati

How to do Hansei

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2012

I am wrapping up a fairly intensive period of reflection. This week was the first board meeting since the merger of Gemba Research and Kaizen Institute nearly 18 months ago. It has been a time of challenge, opportunity and personal gro

A Factory of One

By Ron Pereira - April 26th, 2012

If you missed our most recent webinar called “A Factory of One” you can watch a replay of it here. It was excellent and I highly recommend you take the time to check it out. It’s free to view until May 15, 2012.  Aft

How to Tell if a Visual Control is Working

By Jon Miller - April 21st, 2012

Humans Wanted for Lean Journey. Small Wages, Bitter Cold, Constant Danger…

By Jon Miller - April 19th, 2012

Ernest Shackleton was a British explorer celebrated for his exploration of the Antarctic. During the 1914-1917 expedition aboard the aptly-named Endurance, he lead his crew without loss of life through disasters which included their sh

Caine’s Arcade

By Ron Pereira - April 16th, 2012

I second Dan in saying this may be the best 11 minutes of your day.  If you want to be inspired – and smile – watch this video (click through to site if you’re reading via email or RSS).  Really, folks.  Please wat

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Prehistoric Shark Attack Evacuation Plan

By Jon Miller - April 14th, 2012

This may be the most unhelpful emergency evacuation visual control in the United States of America. The evacuation plan resembles a journey through a shark’s intestines. Should one need to actually consult it, the ability to read

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Never stay in rooms 601-617

By Jon Miller - April 10th, 2012

This ambiguous visual control creates more doubts than assurances. What is the message here? Do some people prefer and wish to be directed to the unclean rooms? Room 621 was in fact quite nice.

Yet More Musings on Muda

By Jon Miller - April 1st, 2012

Michel Baudin’s blog article More Musings on Muda, meant to end fruitless debate on the definitions and categorizations of the types of waste, in fact, led to some brief but interesting exchanges on Twitter. The discussion center