Gemba Academy

FastCap Lean Tour: "Do Kaizen First" Every Day

By Jon Miller - November 7th, 2010

Here is another great video from innovator and lean leader Paul Akers. In this video members of one of Gemba Consulting USA’s lean tour groups from Bombardier Aerospace share their impressions while visiting FastCap. Bombardier i

Three Things to Check During a Gemba Walk

By Jon Miller - November 5th, 2010

As the teaching and implementation lean becomes more of a business there are an increasing number of 72-point surveys and 40-criteria lean maturity assessments. These certainly have value since an end-to-end customer-focused business l

Effective Visual Controls and the Minimum Noticeable Difference

By Jon Miller - November 2nd, 2010

On a recent trip to a market in southern China it occurred to me that there must be a thriving industry producing red ink in this country. By red ink I mean not financial losses but the literal wet and sanguine stuff that so much of th

The Non-Standard Semantics of Standardization

By Jon Miller - October 31st, 2010

The words standard, standards, and standardization with their associated concepts and meanings cause a lot of trouble for lean thinkers and others whose intentions are to promote continuous improvement without the lean label. A basic p

Six Degrees of Taiichi Ohno

By Jon Miller - October 26th, 2010

I was recently asked my view on an idea going around the community of lean thinking people. This notion goes that in order to be a sensei one must be separated by no more than two or three degrees from Taiichi Ohno. Without any disresp

Facing Adversity – Ron Washington Style

By Ron Pereira - October 25th, 2010

I live in the Dallas Fort Worth area… as such, I’ve been completely consumed with the excitement of the Texas Rangers making the World Series. And while there are so many amazing story lines with this young team… the aspect I wa

The Smallest Steps Towards Quality Improvement

By Jon Miller - October 24th, 2010

There is a story about a consultant, apocryphal perhaps, who charged $10,000 for putting a chalk mark on the part of a machine that was causing big problems for his customer. When the customer complained that the charge was excessive f

Practical Pokayoke: Preventing Phone Charger Loss

By Jon Miller - October 19th, 2010

This is an example of a great pokayoke (mistake proofing). My road warrior colleague Kent is prone to forget his phone charger, leaving them plugged in when he departs. The photo above shows the simple yet brilliant application of the

The “Lean Group” Syndrome

By Ron Pereira - October 18th, 2010

I had a recent discussion with a relative who works in a large Chicago based hospital. As it turns out, this particular hospital is attempting to use lean to improve their processes. During our discussion I could tell something wasn’

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Lost in the Supermarket

By Jon Miller - October 16th, 2010

Visual controls must at the very minimum be unambiguous, and either indicate normal versus abnormal or to positively specify a problem condition in order to be useful. Ambiguous visual controls are a waste of print and only good as exa

Blog Action Day: Water

By Jon Miller - October 15th, 2010

Most of us take water for granted. It is colorless, tasteless and runs within, on or around our bodies every moment of our lives. Water flows and forms around obstacles, freezes and cracks the hardest stone, evaporates and floats away

Waste Rules the Empty Spaces Between Us

By Jon Miller - October 13th, 2010

The latest episode in the chronicle of the lean journey at Group Health Cooperative in Washington State is A Story from the Front By Dr. Wellesley Chapman. Dr. Wellesley writes about the experience of launching the lean transformation

Hand Washing Conundrum… at a Major Coffee House

By Ron Pereira - October 12th, 2010

I was recently washing my hands inside an establishment that sells coffee. I am not big on calling companies out, especially companies trying to improve… which this company is. Anyhow, after I washed my hands I went to dry them.

10 Mistakes in Starting Lean Enterprise Transformations

By Jon Miller - October 11th, 2010

The are plenty of mistakes people can make when starting up a lean enterprise transformation. Interestingly, many of these mistakes are similar if not identical to those entrepreneurs make in starting a business. Perhaps these mistakes

Wasting Time in 3 Billion Meetings

By Jon Miller - October 8th, 2010

Meetings are one of the few times when humans have the opportunity to positively and constructively interact with one another, yet it seems businesses and organizations large and small struggle to make them effective. In fact often mee

Book Review: Kaizen Event Fieldbook

By Ron Pereira - October 8th, 2010

My friend, and fellow lean blogger, Mark Hamel has written one of the most thorough, and Shingo prize winning, lean workbooks I’ve ever read called Kaizen Event Fieldbook: Foundation, Framework, and Standard Work for Effective Even

The Engine, the Oil and the Fuel

By Jon Miller - October 6th, 2010

A lean facilitator from France asked a question about how lean transformations should be driven. This person’s company started lean in 2007 by having a sensei within top management. The background is: I was named lean facilitator

Free Kaizen Training Video

By Ron Pereira - October 6th, 2010

Here is the first overview video of our latest Gemba Academy course we’re calling The Kaizen Way. My daughters even make an appearance! This new course is focused on all things kaizen – the kaizen event, suggestions systems

Shifting Care to the Front Line

By Jon Miller - October 3rd, 2010

An article in the October 2010 issue of the Scientific American titled “Closing the Healthcare Gap” revealed the importance of primary care physicians in improving the healthcare system and also the problem of a shortage of

Should we Pay for Performance? What do you think?

By Ron Pereira - October 3rd, 2010

Dan, a reader of LSS Academy, recently emailed me this excellent question. I was hoping to get your help as I formulated a response. Here is Dan’s question. Ever since I studied process improvement at BYU I learned about E. D

Bring on the Learning Revolution!

By Jon Miller - October 2nd, 2010

My friend Ted is always spreading good ideas. This 18 minute video titled “Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!” was delivered with skill and humor, bringing home some ideas that have interesting parallels wi

Thank You for Saving Energy

By Jon Miller - September 29th, 2010

Junaid shared with us a simple energy savings idea he took away from a study trip to Japan: I learned many things from Japanese society energy saving is one of them which we have implemented in our factory in Pakistan. I was really imp

Join us for a Lean and Six Sigma Networking Party in the Seattle area!

By Ron Pereira - September 29th, 2010

Gemba Academy is sponsoring the next iSixSigma Live! Social and Networking Party in the Seattle/Bellevue area. If you live in this part of America please be sure to come out and say hi! Here are the details of the event. Join us for an

Lean Thinking and The Little Prince

By Jon Miller - September 28th, 2010

Sometimes life feels as hard as passing an elephant through a boa constrictor. French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 – 1944) left us with a charming novella, The Little Prince. Perhaps opening this book again w

Cross Training, the Johari Window and Kaizen

By Jon Miller - September 27th, 2010

Within a lean work system the practice of job rotation serves the purpose of cross training and increased flexibility. This can be deliberate and time-based for repetitive manual work, such that people switch from one task to another e

Gemba Academy Blog

Blog Archive