Gemba Academy

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

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

There is No Such Thing as Sustainability

By Jon Miller - March 20th, 2010

One of the finds during my ongoing spring cleaning at the Gemba office was an article with quotes by outdoor clothing and equipment company Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, with references to his book Let My People Go Surfing: The Edu

Kaizen Song: Change Agents

By Jon Miller - March 18th, 2010

This kaizen song is inspired by and dedicated to each of the men and women, young and old, with whom I have been fortunate to learn about what it takes to make change happen. Change Agents (to the music of Changes by David Bowie) I did

When to Shift from "Why?" to "How?"

By Jon Miller - March 16th, 2010

A recent problem solving team activity made me aware of the importance of knowing when to shift the conversation from “why?” to “how?” To be honest it is sometimes hard to know where to draw the line in the 5 wh

No Money in Muda!

By Ron Pereira - March 15th, 2010

We’re finishing up the final touches on a new course over at Gemba Academy called “Lean Lingo Explained.” In this course Brad Schmidt, the managing partner of Gemba Japan, explains what several lean terms mean in grea

Run is to Milk as Spider is to…

By Jon Miller - March 14th, 2010

A pair of questions about lean logistics over the past few weeks prompted this post. Santosh from India asked “what is the milk run method?” The Milk Run The milk run is an example of time-fixed, quantity variable replenish

What You May be Missing About 5S

By Jon Miller - March 11th, 2010

Paul left a couple of comments recently that caught my attention: HELP! My company has been “attempting” 5s for several years now,and have recently begun rolling it out once again after stopping it a few years back. My prob

Who will you hire?

By Ron Pereira - March 10th, 2010

Which do you feel is more important – hard work and hustle or brains and intelligence? In other words, if you had to choose between the following two people to run your family business… who would it be? Person 1: Average intell

Peter Drucker’s Impact on Lean Thinking

By Jon Miller - March 9th, 2010

The spring cleaning continues. My research library is an embarrassment of riches. Old notes and unfinished files hide in the shame of abundance. More the worse, no matter how much knowledge is shared its abundance only increases. Lucki

Lean Leaders, circa 2020

By Ron Pereira - March 7th, 2010

Guest Post by Michael Lombard of the Lean Builder Blog Have you seen any of Conan O’Brien’s “In the Year 2000” skits? They were funny when he started doing them way back in the 90’s, and were even funnier when he kept doing t

The Goal: A 2 Second Improvement Each Day

By Ron Pereira - March 4th, 2010

Another hat tip to Jon Miller for first posting this video of Paul Akers and the FastCap team practicing lean thinking. What you think of this process? Do you do something similar at your place of work?

Lean in Hospitals: Running Free vs. Coordinated Efforts

By Ron Pereira - March 3rd, 2010

Guest Post by Alicia C. Simmer of KHC There’s a choice to be made in how hospital leaders approach implementing lean: either let lean run free or force lean efforts to be coordinated. Running Free In the ‘running free’ approach,

Checking the Plan: Toyota Way 2001

By Jon Miller - March 2nd, 2010

Interesting articles of information continue to surface as the spring cleaning progresses at the Gemba office. Today’s find was a page from an interview with Fujio Cho. As the CEO of Toyota he had summarized the the desired ways

The Wisdom within the Experience

By Jon Miller - February 28th, 2010

We enjoy the freedom of speech and a free press. The accessibility of self-publishing and distribution of news and opinions due to blogs and internet journals has removed barriers to entry of the would-be journalist and columnists. As

The Lean US Senator Preaches the Gospel that is Lean on Fox News!

By Ron Pereira - February 26th, 2010

Hat tip to Jon Miller for first posting this video of Paul Akers preaching lean on Fox News. Yes, preaching lean on the most watched news station in the free world – Fox News. Check it out for yourself!!!

Senate Candidate Paul Akers Preaches Lean on Fox News

By Jon Miller - February 26th, 2010

Wow.

3 Life Lessons P90X Has Taught Me

By Ron Pereira - February 25th, 2010

I awake to the sound of my iPhone alarm clock ringing. It’s 5:15 AM. Are you kidding me? I lay there for about a minute. Then, my dog Lexi, who is 15 years old and losing her mind, comes to my side of the bed and begins her ritualist

Questions About A3 Problem Solving

By Jon Miller - February 25th, 2010

These days if you stand next to a Toyota building and listen closely you may hear the sound of many sheets of A3 sized paper being slowly turned into problem solving documents. There are a few big, complex problems that will surely res

Gemba Academy Blog

Blog Archive