Gemba Academy

Management Improvement Carnival #83

By Jon Miller - November 30th, 2009

We are honored to guest host Management Improvement Carnival #83. John “The Curious Cat” Hunter has collected interesting blog articles in over 80 previous carnivals. If you missed Carnival #82 be sure to visit the choices

Cardinal Virtues and Leadership Series: Justice

By Ron Pereira - November 30th, 2009

The other day my 5 year old daughter said… OK, to be more accurate she whined, “She [referring to her 7 year old sister] got candy… why don’t I?” Ah yes, my children often remind me of how important fairness and justice are.

How to Build the Road Warrior’s Stand Up Desk

By Jon Miller - November 29th, 2009

Where there is a will there is a way. I learned that lesson again. Yesterday I was complaining to myself about being unproductive, chalking it up to a 1:40am flight, the weather, and the uncomfortable chair at the desk in my hotel room

Cross Training in a One Piece Flow Cell

By Jon Miller - November 28th, 2009

I am working through the backlog of Ask Gemba questions. Bas asked: In a one piece flow cell that is fully loaded with customer demand, how can new people be trained, without creating significant flow problems? Operators are moving wit

How to Stop and Fix in a Stationary Process

By Jon Miller - November 24th, 2009

Graham asked: My background is high volume automotive production like Ford. I am now involved with static build production of HVAC units. How do I best apply stop the line methods with static builds? ie no line to stop. Thanks for the

Looking for Evidence of PDCA

By Jon Miller - November 21st, 2009

Lately I’ve been more mindful about looking for evidence of PDCA. The Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle is the essence of continuous improvement and about half of what makes a lean management system possible. The other part has somethin

No Excuses, Respect for People and Finishing Strong

By Jon Miller - November 19th, 2009

We often make excuses about why we can’t do something, whether it’s solve a problem, improve our situation or just get things done. My friend Róbert shared an inspiring video of a speech by Nick Vujicic. Nick is a man with

Made Up Lean Enterprise Statistics

By Jon Miller - November 17th, 2009

For a group of people who claim to practice management by fact and question the as-given condition, we in the lean community have a troubling habit of citing and accepting made up lean enterprise statistics. In fact I would say that at

Stand Up Desk To Go

By Ron Pereira - November 17th, 2009

I was on the road last night doing some work in my hotel room. After an hour or so my back started to hurt from the crappy chair I was sitting in so I decided to create my very own “stand up desk to go” in honor of my rec

My New Stand Up Desk

By Ron Pereira - November 15th, 2009

I first witnessed so called “stand up desks” in Japan during my JKE trip. As an aside you can read about this amazing trip here, here, here, here, and here. Anyhow, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the idea. I me

UK Folding Plug – Brilliant Innovation

By Ron Pereira - November 11th, 2009

As a frequent traveler to the UK I can definitely appreciate this device. It’s simple, yet profound. I am not sure if it is available for purchase yet… but if it is I plan to buy one next time I fly across the pond. Wha

Scientific Management 2.0

By Jon Miller - November 8th, 2009

Bob Emiliani wrote a thoughtful call to arms piece in the Superfactory articles section this week. Enticingly titled Free Money, Free Love it predictably delivers neither of those things. Instead Bob makes a case for the need for the l

The Kipling Method vs. the Ohno Method

By Jon Miller - November 4th, 2009

There is an interesting story told by Toyota veterans who worked directly with Taiichi Ohno. When the great sensei and architect of the Toyota Production System was introduced to the 5W1H questions for problem solving, he said “Y

The 5 Universal Laws of Gemba Management

By Jon Miller - November 2nd, 2009

When we say something is “not rocket science” we mean that it is not hard to figure out or to do. If managing people were as easy as rocket science I am sure a rocket scientist would have figured it out by now. Groups of pe

Green Manufacturing Tour of Toyota Tsutsumi

By Jon Miller - October 31st, 2009

An article on the CarAdvice.com.au website titled Toyota’s Tsutsumi Plant – tour a green role model highlights some of the advances Toyota has made at the factory which assembles the Prius hybrid car. Some featured environm

Who Sets the Standard?

By Jon Miller - October 29th, 2009

Over the past few weeks I have had several conversations about standard work and who creates it. In each case I find myself trying to dispel one of the most common myths of the Toyota Production System: that the workers themselves crea

Cardinal Virtues and Leadership Series: Prudence

By Ron Pereira - October 27th, 2009

“In everything consider the consequences.” – La Fontaine A few articles ago I proposed the idea that successful leaders, in addition to being humble, should also practice the 4 Cardinal virtues. I also committed to ex

Your Important Feedback Requested: A Simple 2 Question Survey

By Ron Pereira - October 26th, 2009

I would really appreciate your thoughts on this simple, 2 question survey that should take less than 30 seconds to complete. A big thanks in advance for your time and valuable insight! Click Here to take survey

Skitt’s Law Applied to Kaizen

By Jon Miller - October 26th, 2009

I became aware of a truth about lean problem solving and kaizen yesterday while reading an article about ten internet rules and laws. 4. Skitt’s Law Expressed as “any post correcting an error in another post will contain at

MBWA: Management by Watching the Actual

By Jon Miller - October 23rd, 2009

MBWA was briefly a fad when it was known as Management by Walking Around. Supposedly the visibility of management in the workplace as well as the attention by management improved communication and performance. These days we don’t

Brilliant Value Stream Mapping Icon Fonts

By Jon Miller - October 20th, 2009

Yesterday, Jamie Flinchbaugh shared a discovery on his blog. Also, the nice folks at Ambor have developed several very useful fonts for Lean. Skill Matrix Font The Harvey Balls ideograms are great for filling out the skill matrix. Comp

Thank You and Last Chance to Purchase Lean Audio Book at $7.95

By Ron Pereira - October 19th, 2009

Just a quick post to thank all of you that have purchased the LSS Academy Guide to Lean Audio Book. Your generous support helps us pay the bills around here (i.e. monthly hosting, site maintenance, etc.) without having to plaster annoy

What Would Newt Gingrich do with American Health Care?

By Jon Miller - October 17th, 2009

Newt Gingrich is an American scholar, politician and a man of big ideas. Not all big ideas are meant to be put into practice, but these comments from an interview in The Intelligencer article titled Gingrich: Republican Party Recoverin

Cardinal Virtues and Leadership

By Ron Pereira - October 15th, 2009

Our most recent article, Level 5 Leadership, created quite the discussion in the comments section (18 comments as I write this). As is normally the case, I learned a lot from all the comments. I agreed with some of them and disagreed w

Taiichi Ohno Video on Youtube

By Jon Miller - October 14th, 2009

Only it’s in Turkish. Unfortunately that’s not one of my languages, and I can only hear brief snippets of Japanese beneath it, not enough to make out more than a few words. If any readers are capable in Turkish perhaps you

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