Gemba Academy

I Want to Be Like Benny

By Ron Pereira - September 27th, 2010

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” ~Mother Teresa As I mentioned last week, my Dad is now recovering in a superbly run stroke rehab hospital. This particular hospital has many wonderful attributes. It’s cle

Is Too Much Money Worse than Too Little?

By Jon Miller - September 24th, 2010

An old friend of mine who has run a small construction company for decades reflected back on his career as he nears retirement, “If I’d been rich I think I would have done many bad things.” He was probably talking abo

We Have a Long Way to Go

By Ron Pereira - September 24th, 2010

My Dad recently suffered a devastating stroke… as such I traveled to see him this week. When I first arrived he was in a major hospital within a major city within a major country. Yes, I’m being vague so the political jun

Stealing the 7 Secrets of Toyota’s Business Success

By Jon Miller - September 22nd, 2010

Taizo Ishida (1888-1979) took over the role of President of Toyota from the inventor and founder Kiichiro Toyoda in the midst of labor unrest, layoffs and the threat of bankruptcy. Ishida is considered the “restorer of ToyotaR

Possibly the Worst Ever Use of a Suggestion Box

By Jon Miller - September 20th, 2010

A September 20, 2010 New York Times article title Haitians Cry in Letters describes what happened when suggestions boxes were set up recently at the 1,300 camps for refugees of the earthquake in Haiti. The letters in the boxes are not

10,000 Subscribers – THANK YOU!

By Ron Pereira - September 17th, 2010

I am not a big blog stats guy… I used to be. I’d check how many people visited the blog every other hour of the day! Eventually I realized how much time I wasted doing this! But one stat I do follow since, at least to m

A Different Way to Learn

By Ron Pereira - September 17th, 2010

A big hat tip over to Kevin Meyer or Evolving Excellence for sharing this video with me. It’s a fascinating story of how some children are learning more than anyone could ever imagine possible. I’m definitely interested

Bridging the Knowing-Doing Gap

By Jon Miller - September 16th, 2010

One common theme from the lean tours we led here in Japan this week was that all of the organizations we visited have successfully bridged what is called the knowing-doing gap. Popularized by Stanford University professor Robert Sutto

3 Soccer Balls on a green soccer field. A soccer goal in the background.

The Making of the 2010 World Cup Soccer Ball

By Ron Pereira - September 16th, 2010

I am coaching my daughter’s U7 soccer team this year and, as such, have been reading as much as I can about the game. I was a wrestler growing up… never played soccer in my life! Anyhow, I came across this video on how th

How to Sustain a Lean Culture after 10 Years

By Jon Miller - September 15th, 2010

This week I am in Japan helping to lead one of our lean manufacturing benchmarking trips. What I took away from the debriefing from yesterday’s lean benchmarking visit was a series of lessons on how to sustain a lean culture afte

Still Learning the Meaning of Cleaning

By Jon Miller - September 14th, 2010

Just when you thought you knew all you needed to know about cleaning the workplace as part of lean manufacturing, the universe sends you a day like yesterday. We visited a small, privately held company in rural Japan. This company was

There’s Nothing Fantastic About Being Good

By Ron Pereira - September 14th, 2010

I was recently flipping through one of my favorite lean books of all time, Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management. I often grab this book, open it up, and randomly read a page much like I do with the Bible. You see, for me, as with the

Energy Savings Kaizen: Switch on to Use

By Jon Miller - September 13th, 2010

This week we are leading a big group on a lean manufacturing study mission in Japan. We call it the Japan Kaikaku Experience because we learn from companies that have gone through or are still going through kaikaku , a lean business tr

Lean Manufacturing and the Brain

By Jon Miller - September 11th, 2010

This week I learned that within the three pounds of spongy flesh that is the human brain there are 1.1 trillion cells, 100 billion neurons and 10 x 10 to the millionth power of possible neuron connections. This number makes my brain hu

Here It Comes, the Lean Burrito!

By Jon Miller - September 9th, 2010

LeanAmerica.org

Preparing Coffee

By Ron Pereira - September 9th, 2010

Last night, before I went to bed, I set my coffee maker up to start brewing at 5:45 AM. I also placed my coffee mug and a spoon next to the coffee maker so I wouldn’t have to fumble about in the morning. This morning, around 6

Why Salmon Would Fail at Hoshin Kanri

By Jon Miller - September 8th, 2010

While cleaning out my pockets after a long summer of travel I found “hoshin is like salmon” on a bit of improvised note-taking paper, in my handwriting. If it was important enough to write down, the meaning of this scrawl s

A Day that Changed My Life Forever

By Ron Pereira - September 7th, 2010

It was early evening – around 7:00 PM. I was leaving the plant I was visiting that week and noticed a second shift operator preparing to start his day. I went over to say hi to the young man. He was a nice fellow… he had one of

Leaders Pull

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2010

Leaders lead. Or do they? There is not always a cause and effect relationship between leadership actions and follower behavior. Not all leaders succeed at pulling people along in the same direction. If a leader needs to drive people in

The Don’t Quit Poem

By Ron Pereira - September 3rd, 2010

I absolutely love this. Enjoy. Oh, and if you’re reading this on an iPhone or via RSS reader/email you’ll likely need to click through to the site.

Who’s Winning?

By Ron Pereira - September 2nd, 2010

I recently had the pleasure of having lunch with Rick Foreman. Rick frequently comments on this blog and many others. Rick is also extremely passionate about lean… he’s the sort of fellow that gets you all pumped up and ready to ma

8 Reasons to Love Kaizen Events

By Jon Miller - September 1st, 2010

Some people disparage the 5-day kaizen event as a driver for continuous improvement. When the kaizen even it the only way of putting creative ideas and lean systems into practice this can be a sign of fake lean. Roadmaps, tools and met

A Major Announcement That You’ve Made Possible

By Ron Pereira - August 30th, 2010

My life changed – more than I could have ever imagined – Sunday evening, January 14, 2007. You see it was on this day that I wrote my first blog article. I remember wondering if anyone would read it? I actually just re-read

5 Ways the Obeya (Big Room) Increases Profit

By Jon Miller - August 28th, 2010

Walls. If you live in the modern world or work within a secondary or tertiary industry, look up and you will see a wall. Ahead, behind or to the side of you the wall is there. We walk along, past and through them every day but think no

How I Sustain a Clean PC Desktop

By Ron Pereira - August 27th, 2010

Have you ever heard the stories of how the air conditioning repair man often has air conditioning problems at home? Or how the plumber’s wife is constantly after him to fix the leak under the sink? Well, I can relate. You see, if

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