Gemba Academy

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

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

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

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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

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