Gemba Academy

Never Start with 5S!

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2010

“Oh no,” some of you are thinking. “Too late! Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Jamie Flinchbaugh started a thought-provoking discussion today on his blog where he says don’t do 5S and gives good reas

As I come up on the 90th day of my P90X workout program I can’t help but compare the situation to the continuous improvement journey. You see, by definition, the P90X program is meant to get you into top shape within 90 days. And, le

The Will, the Willow and the Frog

By Jon Miller - May 2nd, 2010

Change is like the boughs of the willow in a breeze. We can seldom control more than the very leaves and tips of branches, never the whole tree itself. When faced with absolutely solvable problems going unaddressed or imaginable future

An Infinite Number of Solutions…

By Jon Miller - April 30th, 2010

…may seem like a good thing. After all, the more solutions we have to any particular problem, the more likely we are to solve it right? In actual practice when we are properly constrained we are more likely to spend our time and

Three Questions about Standardized Work in the Office

By Jon Miller - April 27th, 2010

A client asked an earnest question. I have my opinions but not observed facts. In fact I have heard conflicting information on this issue, with respect to Toyota. How does Toyota manage their support staff documentation? Around what %

What to Do When Your Lean Implementation is Like a Chicken

By Jon Miller - April 25th, 2010

Premanath asked: What is skill matrix and before starting skill matrix what should be known? Nice two-part question. The first part is relatively easy and has little to do with chickens. The skill matrix is a document that displays the

The Necessity of Redundancy

By Jon Miller - April 21st, 2010

After every major natural disaster that disrupts global supply chains there are voices that cry out “A-ha! I told you just in time doesn’t work!” So with the Icelandic volcano turning European skies airoplane-free for

A Tracking Method for 5S Programs

By Jon Miller - April 20th, 2010

David asked: I’m having a difficult time coming up with a tracking method for our 5S program. We are running a program with a scoring value but no real tracking method. Any suggestions? We have to pause every time we hear the wor

Ten Tips for Better Facilitation

By Jon Miller - April 18th, 2010

Facilitation is the art of guiding but not leading, bringing learning but not lecturing, engaging but not directing. Coming from the Latin facilitar meaning “to make easy” the role of the facilitator is not to do for others

How to Calculate Process Cycle Efficiency

By Ron Pereira - April 15th, 2010

We’ve received several questions related to how to calculate Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE) over on our most popular blog article of all time: How to Create a Current State Value Stream Map. And while I have written on this PCE t

What do you think of this picture?

By Ron Pereira - April 15th, 2010

My family and I recently took a road trip. During a stop at a restaurant I came across this sign in the restroom (click picture to enlarge it). I’m curious to hear your thoughts on whether you think this is a weak or strong con

LSS Academy Now on LinkedIn

By Ron Pereira - April 12th, 2010

I’m happy to announce that LSS Academy is now on LinkedIn. We’ll obviously continue to roll strong here on the blog… but there seems to be something something special about LinkedIn when it comes to generating buzz ab

My Suggestion to Improve Long Beach Airport

By Jon Miller - April 11th, 2010

Long Beach Airport is tiny, has oddly artistic lines and is blessed with palm trees set against a blue sky. The airport’s single terminal ends almost before it begins. Baggage claim is a short stretch of conveyor, outside of the

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Waste Please

By Jon Miller - April 7th, 2010

There is something sinister about a place that calls itself “the happiest place on earth”. How did they arrive at that superlative conclusion? Did they benchmark GNH (Gross National Happiness) against other locations on ear

Vague Instructions and Counting

By Ron Pereira - April 7th, 2010

On Monday I wrote a fun little article asking the fine readers of LSS Academy if they could count! Of course this was all done in fun… as I know you can all count. But, as many of you pointed out, there were several lessons to be lea

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

By Jon Miller - April 6th, 2010

I just finished reading and thoroughly enjoyed The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Dr. Atul Gawande. I recommend it. Mark Graban at the Lean Blog has written passionately and at length about the value of checklists in i

Can you count? Are you sure?

By Ron Pereira - April 5th, 2010

If you’ve ever gone through some form of continuous improvement training you may have done this little experiment. But in case you haven’t, I’d like to challenge you to count the number of times the letter “F

Five Most Terrifying Words for a Lean Thinker

By Jon Miller - April 2nd, 2010

The check was not performed. These words were spoken today during a meeting to review an ongoing and complex problem solving effort within Gemba. These words chilled me to the bone. The failure to perform a check is far more dangerous

Coming clean…

By Ron Pereira - April 2nd, 2010

My article yesterday, about Yahoo! buying LSS Academy, has officially taken on legs of its own. There were several comments to the post but even more emails, phone calls, etc. I’ve had family members and close friends sending c

The Business Complexity Accelerator at Toyota

By Jon Miller - April 1st, 2010

There was an interesting article in the Knowledge@Wharton newsletter today. Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie interviewed Toyota expert, author and Tokyo University Professor Takahiro Fujimoto. The piece is called Under

I Presently Struggle With

By Ron Pereira - March 29th, 2010

One of my favorite quotes from the P90X training videos goes like this. “If you can eliminate the mindset that ‘I can’t. I can’t do pull ups.’ Forget I can’t – say ‘I presently struggle with’ and if you keep that

How to Scold Like a Kaizen Sensei

By Jon Miller - March 28th, 2010

There must be people at Toyota waking up in a cold sweat these days from dreams in which they are being scolded by Taiichi Ohno, furious at the massive vehicle recalls caused ostensibly by the pursuit of scale and volume production at

10,999,950 More Reasons to Think “Yes We Can”

By Jon Miller - March 25th, 2010

Sooner or later everyone involved in leading change faces naysayers and passive resisters. With the power of their minds these people add friction to the PDCA improvement cycle, noise in the signal of root cause analysis, and turbulenc

National Public Radio to Feature Lean Thinking and NUMMI

By Jon Miller - March 23rd, 2010

This Saturday March 27, 2010 the NPR program This American Life will feature the story of the Toyota-GM join venture factory in California in an episode titled NUMMI. Here is a promotional blurb from the NPR website. The story of a car

The Three Indispensable Qualities of a Lean Leader

By Jon Miller - March 22nd, 2010

Recently an old friend asked me to recommend a curriculum for certifying the lean leaders within their company to a more advanced level. The basic requirements for leading lean implementation, as with any change effort, are fairly stan

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