Gemba Academy

The Only Type of Kaizen is Daily Kaizen

By Jon Miller - January 17th, 2011

Last week I was asked to identify the three types of kaizen. People feel the need to classify. Boundaries are useful approximations and should not limit us too much in practice. The three types of kaizen commonly identified are big, me

Standardization Video

By Ron Pereira - January 16th, 2011

This video focuses on the extremely important topic of Standardization. It’s also the first video of Gemba Academy’s latest course focused entirely on the lean concept of Standard Work. To learn more about this Standard Wor

My Take on Lean and Six Sigma Certifications

By Ron Pereira - January 13th, 2011

A few days ago I posed the question about whether exam based lean six sigma certifications were legitimate or frauds. As usual, many of you came through with excellent thoughts and comments. Some of you supported the idea, others argu

Exam Based Six Sigma Certifications – Legit or Fraud?

By Ron Pereira - January 12th, 2011

The topic of Lean and Six Sigma Certification is one of the most debated topics in the continuous improvement world. And since I’m never one to shy away from some good old-fashioned debate… I’d like to present the fol

Ambiguous Visual Controls: KEEP RED OFF LINE

By Jon Miller - January 5th, 2011

Who is Red and why is it important to keep him off line? This Monday I realized that for the past 13 years I have been stepping on or over these letters on the floor in SeaTac International Airport without taking any action regarding R

The Best of LSS Academy – 2010 Edition

By Ron Pereira - January 4th, 2011

As we welcome 2011 with open arms I thought I’d take this opportunity to reflect back on the year that was. In 2010 LSS Academy grew far faster than I could have ever expected as we reached more than 11,000 subscribers. Thank you! An

Why Hoshin Kanri?

By Ron Pereira - January 3rd, 2011

In this article we’ll continue our hoshin kanri series. In part 1 of this series we learned what the words hoshin kanri mean… so be sure to check that out if you haven’t already. Let’s Set Some Objectives! As we start 2011 many

Tools are Worthless, but Tooling is Everything

By Jon Miller - January 2nd, 2011

Last month LEI Chairman and CEO John Shook asked us all a fundamental question in his e-mail newsletter. Everyone wants to know “what’s next for lean?” and John Shook answers this by saying, but in a much nicer way, &

A New Year, a New Gemba

By Jon Miller - January 1st, 2011

I welcome 2011 with a great deal of optimism and excitement. Today marks a new beginning for our company, our team and for me personally. Thirteen years ago we founded Gemba Research with the goal of doing something significant towards

Merry Christmas!

By Ron Pereira - December 24th, 2010

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year! And if you haven’t already heard it, I’d recommend you check out “Gemba Clause” over at the Lean Blog! Enjoy and God Bless!

Making Things is Not About Making Things

By Jon Miller - December 14th, 2010

What is the purpose of a factory? The obvious answer is that a factory is there for the purpose of making things. We can further inquire into the purpose of making things and come up with various answers that basically boil down to

Vote “YES” for the American Innovator

By Ron Pereira - December 13th, 2010

Paul Akers and Jon Lussier are lean thinking business leaders I admire immensely. For the past year they have brought their energy and enthusiasm for lean and business to the AM radio show called The American Innovator. This show run

Hoshin Kanri: Steel, Needles, Tubes, and Logic

By Ron Pereira - December 6th, 2010

Hoshin Kanri. Have you heard of it? If you’ve been around the lean world you likely have. Well, over the coming weeks I plan to cover the highlights of what hoshin kanri is and how you and your organization might best leverage it. In

Who is Responsible?

By Jon Miller - December 6th, 2010

“Who is responsible?” This is a phrase I used to translate all of the time when walking around with one of my Japanese sensei during a consultation. Other interpreters would use the English phrase “Who’s in char

11 Lean Strategy Insights from the Mind of Art Byrne

By Jon Miller - December 2nd, 2010

Bob Emiliani’s latest book, Real Lean vol. 6 contains both controversial and though-provoking ideas about lean as it relates to politics, economics, education, leadership and management. It’s an easy read but not a light re

7 Ways to Keep Kaizen Going after Years of Progress

By Jon Miller - November 30th, 2010

Many organizations have pursued kaizen for years or even decades now, 25 years after the publication of Masaaki Imai’s classic book Kaizen. Yet many find that after a few years of progress with kaizen it becomes difficult to main

The Four Pillars of Built-In Quality

By Jon Miller - November 28th, 2010

The TPS house is often drawn with a triangular roof, a rectangular foundation and two rectangular columns between the foundation and roof. The space between the columns is filled with one’s choice of the systems, tools and princi

The Soccer Coach

By Ron Pereira - November 23rd, 2010

I recently completed one of the most humbling experiences of my life… I coached my daughter’s U7 soccer team. The main challenge for me was that I never played soccer growing up. As such, I had a lot of learning to do before I coul

Three Types of Standardized Work

By Jon Miller - November 22nd, 2010

One of our readers Harish asked: Recently I have come across different types of standardized work in two or three places during my research. They are Type 1, 2 and 3. Can you please throw some light on this? While the concept was not n

One Man’s Trash

By Jon Miller - November 19th, 2010

…is another person’s treasure, as the saying goes. Lean is about making effective use of all resources we are wasting whether time, money, information, material or the creative capabilities of people. Too much focus is give

How to Drive Fear and Inaction Out of Organizations

By Jon Miller - November 17th, 2010

One of the main reasons that the authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton give for inaction in the face of knowledge in their highly useful book The Knowing-Doing Gap is fear. They cite a statistic that one in six people have held bac

Lead with Just the Power of Ideas

By Jon Miller - November 16th, 2010

I watched the movie Inception during a recent flight. It is a film about planting ideas into the minds of businessmen by sneaking into their dreams. This sounds difficult until we consider the film’s viewpoint that all existence,

The Problem With Gurus

By Ron Pereira - November 15th, 2010

Gurus really bother me. These gurus come in many different shapes and sizes. They may think they know all there is about lean, or six sigma, or cooking, or coaching a sports team, or raising a family. You see, gurus are everywhere and

Assessing “Respect for People” on a Gemba Walk

By Jon Miller - November 14th, 2010

In a comment posted to an article about 3 things to check during a gemba walk, lean thinker and author Bob Emiliani commented: For decades the focus of gemba walks has been on operations and evaluating continuous improvement activities

6 Ways to Ensure Fear Doesn’t Win

By Ron Pereira - November 8th, 2010

How motivated are you right now? Very? A little? Not much? The honest answer to this question might explain how happy and fulfilled you feel as a person. Let’s explore why this is. Defined, motivation can be said to be the psychologi

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