Gemba Academy Blog

The Way of the Goose: 5 Leadership Lessons

By Ron Pereira - April 21st, 2009

We humans can learn a lot from geese. Yes, that’s right, geese. In fact, in 1991 Angeles Arrien gave a speech called “Lessons from Geese” that was largely based on the work of Milton Olson. What follows is my take on the stor

The A3 Thinking Blog

By Jon Miller - April 20th, 2009

Launched quietly in March by Art Amalley and Prof. Durward Sobek, authors of the Understanding A3 Thinking book, the A3 Thinking Blog promises to be an excellent resource. So far there are just a handful of articles such as User Feedba

Crowdsourced Leadership Standard Work

By Ron Pereira - April 19th, 2009

A few weeks ago I posted an article where I asked for your thoughts on what “leadership standard work” meant to you.  As is typical, you all blew me away with your comments. Steve Armitage, a reader of Gemba Academy’

Does Spiderman Save?

By Ron Pereira - April 18th, 2009

While it has nothing to do with lean or six sigma this was just too good to not share. My 4 year old daughter recently asked my wife, “Mommy, does Spiderman take away the sins of the world?” Sure, they ‘cost’ a

The Continuous Improvement Companion

By Ron Pereira - April 15th, 2009

I recently came across an excellent, and free, resource anyone interested in lean or six sigma will definitely want to check out. The resource is called The Continuous Improvement Companion. It was written by Jeff Hajek, author of the

Visual Management Resource for Lean Hospitals

By Jon Miller - April 13th, 2009

Here is another recent find on visual management: the website of MediFilm “the leaders in healthcare visual management systems”. Who knew there was such a thing to be leaders of? Well done in any case, making a product out

Ask Gemba: Nuts and Bolts of the Andon System

By Jon Miller - April 12th, 2009

Bas Timmerman asked: We are in the process of designing a synchronised flow process with an intermittent transportation system for a new assembly line. We have no buffer positions in the line, so it is critical that we organise support

Go See the Visual Management Blog

By Jon Miller - April 10th, 2009

If you are looking for practical examples of visual controls for managing work in an office, go see the Visual Management Blog written by Xavier Quesada Allue, a software developer, Agile coach and project manager, it is full of photos

No Fear and Big Girl Bikes

By Ron Pereira - April 9th, 2009

One of my favorite things about LSS Academy, aside from the thousands of awesome comments you’ve all left the past few years, is how I get to sneak in personal aspects of my life from time to time. I especially love to write about my

12 Leader Standard Work Questions to Ask on the Gemba

By Jon Miller - April 6th, 2009

Many leaders have heard the buzzword, read the book, picked up a pad and pen and headed out to the gemba to go see. Leader standard work is becoming a standard component of lean implementations everywhere. In essence it has always been

Plan Do Czech Act

By Jon Miller - April 5th, 2009

If there are three things I can’t resist they are Creating lists, Teasing the possibilities out of words, and Attempting to inject levity and fun into teaching kaizen. So please forgive the punning title. The factory tours I part

Free 5S Overview Module

By Ron Pereira - April 5th, 2009

Here is a free 5S Overview module. It’s actually the first module of our 5S Workplace Productivity course that is part of the Gemba Academy School of Lean. For more free online modules like this, including free quizzes and PDF do

Leadership Standard Work

By Ron Pereira - April 3rd, 2009

Did you know that 50% of all leaders are below average? It’s a fact. With this said, a good friend of mine recently asked me what I thought the Standard Work document would look like for a “Leader.” In other words, if you could l

Walk On

By Ron Pereira - April 1st, 2009

Brain Rules

By Ron Pereira - March 30th, 2009

The human brain fascinates me. As such, I was very excited to finally read Brain Rules by John Medina. In this book Medina proposes 12 different rules, that once understood, may help us all to be happier and more productive individuals

Corporate Models of the Future (with bonus Ohno Circle exercise)

By Jon Miller - March 29th, 2009

How Crisis Shapes the Corporate Model is an interesting article in the March 28, 2009, New York Times. It gives some history of how past economic shifts have affected the structure and nature of corporations. The article speculates on

Happiness the Kaizen Way

By Jon Miller - March 26th, 2009

“There are two ways of being happy: We may either diminish our wants or augment our means – either will do – the result in the same; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that which happens to be the ea

The Ultimate “Sustain” Audit

By Ron Pereira - March 24th, 2009

So I have 5S on my mind since I’m wrapping up a 5S course for the Gemba Academy School of Lean. Anyhow, while finishing the “sustain” module I thought about one of the easiest ways to determine how far your organizati

How Do Lean Processes Prevent Human Error?

By Jon Miller - March 24th, 2009

Scott asked an important question on how lean processes can be used to prevent human errors. The good news is that lean processes not only support quality but they lean cannot function without a strong quality culture and organizationa

Kaizen Exercise: Stand in the Circle

By Jon Miller - March 23rd, 2009

Class dismissed. Your assignment for today is to go stand in the circle. Waste never sleeps. We have an hour. Let’s go see. The assignment is simple: find a spot to observe the process silently. Stand and observe for 30 min. Writ

Do We Even Need the 4th and 5th S?

By Ron Pereira - March 20th, 2009

Jon Miller – my friend, mentor, and now business partner – has asked his readers some extremely interesting questions regarding whether the 4th and 5th S, in 5S are even needed. Your feedback will be used by us as we finish

Ask Gemba: Do We Need the 4th and 5th S?

By Jon Miller - March 20th, 2009

Personally I don’t care a great deal for the 4th and 5th S. The team activity of throwing things out, rearranging and cleaning things up can be a blast. Once that’s done and the excitement wears off, the daily maintenance a

Sandwich Making Muda

By Ron Pereira - March 19th, 2009

I absolutely love to watch people. And I don’t mean watch in a creepy kind of way… I mean I love to watch people work and do their jobs. Well, today I was getting some lunch at a restaurant I often go to and I noticed they had impl

10 Things the Amish Can Teach Toyota Leadership

By Jon Miller - March 18th, 2009

Some of my friend have shared stories with me recently of the genchi genbutsu trips Toyota executives from Japan have been making by visiting factories overseas. On their next visit they should take a slight detour to to one of the Mid

The Cost of Searching

By Ron Pereira - March 17th, 2009

Studies have shown that the average person can spend around 30 seconds every 5 minutes of their working day searching for something. That’s not too bad… or is it? Consider This Well, if you consider that this is 30 seconds out of a