Gemba Academy

Is Economic Lot Size Dead?

By Ron Pereira - June 16th, 2009

On page 19 of Shigeo Shingo’s masterpiece A Revolution in Manufacturing: The SMED System he writes an extremely strong statement: “In fact, there is an important blind spot in the concept of economic lot size: the assumptio

There is No Such Thing as Wasteful Work

By Jon Miller - June 16th, 2009

I read an interesting article today in the Japanese paper Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The topic was how white collar businesses men in Japan are adapting the Toyota Production System, or what we would call lean thinking, to their work. The c

Parenting and Lean Six Sigma

By Ron Pereira - June 15th, 2009

I am the father of 4 wonderfully perfect children. I love them more than words can describe and couldn’t imagine my life without them. And, recently, I’ve been thinking about how much having children helps me to sharpen my lean and

Free Gemba Academy Video: The 7 Deadly Wastes

By Jon Miller - June 11th, 2009

It has now been three months since we launched Gemba Academy – the online learning center for continuous improvement. Each month we add new videos, quizzes, self-study materials and forum discussions. The School of Lean is curren

Review of Follow the Learner by Dr. Sami Bahri, DDS

By Jon Miller - June 10th, 2009

Follow the Learner: The Role of a Leader in Creating a Lean Culture by Dr. Sami Bahri, DDS is the best book on the subject of leadership and lean I have read in a long time. Written as a very personal account of the development of teh

How to Engage People in Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 9th, 2009

As always, thank you for your questions, comments and improvement suggestions. Today one of our readers shared via email a challenge with getting people engaged in kaizen. Whether it is an improvement suggestion system, a software syst

How Do You Make Decisions?

By Ron Pereira - June 5th, 2009

One of things I’ve come to realize about myself is I can make decisions quickly. I don’t need to think about things for days on end… and when in a crisis mode, or a situation that requires an immediate action, I have no problem s

What is the Role of a Kaizen Promotion Officer?

By Jon Miller - June 2nd, 2009

Raghavendra asked, “What is the role of a kaizen promotion officer?” I have never been in a kaizen promotion office (KPO) but have worked with and round them for many years. At worst the KPO is a coordination, preparation,

Old-School Vertical Hierarchies

By Ron Pereira - May 31st, 2009

By: Michael Lombard As the saying goes, I wasn’t born in Texas, but I ran here as fast as I could. When I arrived, I found that the Lone Star State produces some fine beer, specifically, Shiner beer… While I could go on all

9 Ways to Struggle at Hoshin Kanri

By Jon Miller - May 31st, 2009

Hoshin kanri is what happened when Management by Objectives met TQC. In essence it is the thorough application of the PDCA cycle to the strategy development and execution process. There are some unique aspects to hoshin kanri due to th

The Critical Difference Between Defects and Defectives

By Ron Pereira - May 27th, 2009

Today I submit a quick, but extremely important post if you produce a product of any kind. There are two different ways your product can be “bad.” It’s defective First, said product can be defective. This is to say something is w

Knowledge and Thinking

By Ron Pereira - May 25th, 2009

“Knowledge is what keeps the momentum going between dreams and reality.” -Author Unknown I am a firm believer that the “thinking” that occurs while practicing lean manufacturing and six sigma is extremely important. I was remin

Ambiguous Visual Controls: This is Elite Access

By Jon Miller - May 22nd, 2009

Thanks go out to Bill Sampson, a lean six sigma consultant and friend of mine for snapping this photo of an ambiguous visual control in an airport boarding area. This attempt at visual management raises more questions than it answers.

Bill Waddell on American Manufacturing

By Ron Pereira - May 21st, 2009

I don’t pretend to be an “economic guru” by any means… honestly it all makes my head hurt a bit. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy reading Bill Waddell’s thoughts on the state of manufacturing in America &#

Tsurube System: How to Flow through Shared or Batch Equipment

By Jon Miller - May 20th, 2009

One of the inevitable consequences of 5S activity is that you find out that you don’t need some of the things you have, and that you don’t have some of the things you need. More often than not, you also find things you have

5S Red Tag Event for this Website

By Jon Miller - May 17th, 2009

Thanks to a reader’s timely comment, I am happy to share with you some news about some accelerated change to our blog. “The site looks like it needs a red tag event!” said Shaun. Right you are! What surprised me was t

Toyota Stock Watch: Edition 1

By Ron Pereira - May 17th, 2009

John Hunter recently commented that he owns some Toyota stock. And since I value John’s wisdom I decided to take a look at the TM chart to see what it looked like. Now, before I go any further, let me be crystal clear… I am not off

I am sorry

By Ron Pereira - May 14th, 2009

I am sorry. These three words have been ringing about in my mind for the past week or so. No, I didn’t do anything terrible… in other words I am not personally sorry for anything. The reason these words have been stuck in mind is b

8 Ways to Get Total Involvement

By Jon Miller - May 13th, 2009

There was an inspiring article by Pete Abilla on the Shmula blog yesterday called Total Company Involvement. In any company-wide continuous effort, there are various levels and degrees of employee engagement. In a true high-performance

Leadership & Standard Work

By Ron Pereira - May 11th, 2009

By Jeff Hajek A while back, Ron asked a question about how standard work is applied to leadership. Think of it like this. You wouldn’t create standard work for ‘manufacturing.’ You’d create it for the assembly of the WidgetMax3

One-point Lesson: One-point Lesson

By Jon Miller - May 11th, 2009

Sometimes we are so busy that we think we don’t make time to develop the people around us. Instead we fight fires or give direct instructions. This might be effective in the short-term but inevitably small problems are missed. Th

A GPS for the TPS

By Jon Miller - May 5th, 2009

One of the common objections we hear to doing kaizen is that “We’ve tried it before” and it didn’t work. It’s amazing that this could ever be a reason for people to stop trying, yet it is. Last summer I sp

Line Balancing at McDonald’s

By Ron Pereira - May 5th, 2009

I was recently going through the drive through at McDonald’s and saw something very peculiar. The line was quite long but I decided to stick it out. As I sat waiting to get to the board where you speak your order I noticed a Mc

Are Holidays Batch Processing?

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2009

Getting back into the swing of things after most of last week away on holiday, a thought popped into my head: “Are holidays batch processing?” Something about how we spend time at work and how we take time off reminds me of

Visual Controls at DFW Airport

By Ron Pereira - May 4th, 2009

Allow me to set the scene. It’s been a long week on the road… your flight home was delayed 2 hours and you miss your significant other and children more than words can explain. Finally, after what feels like an eternity y

Gemba Academy Blog

Blog Archive