Gemba Academy

5 Why? vs. Why Not?

By Jon Miller - January 24th, 2009

The Toyota Why Not website came my way via Twitter. It’s an interesting distraction. The best part is the birds chirping. I actually looked for an open window until I realized that birds don’t chirp in January in Seattle. T

Lesson for Toyota from the Classics: the Cost of Victory

By Jon Miller - January 22nd, 2009

It’s a shame that future leaders of major corporations such as Toyota and GM no longer receive education in the Classics. If they had, maybe the senior executives at Toyota would have remembered the story of King Pyrrhus of Epiru

Ask Gemba: World Class Direct to Indirect Labor Ratio?

By Jon Miller - January 21st, 2009

B. Huey asked on January 20 in a comment to this article on TPM metrics & financial impact: What is considered a world class ratio for direct labor to indirect & salary? In other words total indirect & salary divided by tot

What Did You Improve Today? If Not, Why?

By Jon Miller - January 19th, 2009

This past Saturday afternoon Mark Graban from the Lean Blog twittered the following to the world: What did you do to make your job easier or. more interesting last week? What action did you take? If nothing, why not? 4:25 PM Jan 17th f

The Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 2 Pt.1

By Jon Miller - January 18th, 2009

Taiichi Ohno devotes fully half of his book to chapter 2. Titled “The Application of the Toyota Production System” is one hundred and one pages long and it provides the body of practical knowledge on what we call lean manuf

Further Reflections on Standard Work

By Jon Miller - January 16th, 2009

The topic of standards is really an interesting and deep one with great importance to not only how we do our work but how we do it more effectively. I thank lean healthcare practitioner Brian Buck for giving us an opportunity to explor

5 Ways Google Can Avoid Eliminating 100 Jobs

By Jon Miller - January 15th, 2009

Is eliminating 100 badly needed jobs in Detroit in the midst of an economic recession evil?. Or is it just business? It depends whether your company name starts in go and ends in ogle. If Google’s motto was “don’t be

5 Tips for Video Taping Others

By Ron Pereira - January 14th, 2009

I’ve recently been involved with a SMED (single minute exchange of dies) kaizen event. The event itself was extremely effective and tons of fun… and while I could share the specifics of the event with you I won’t. Instead, I want

Conveyance is the Shadow of Information

By Jon Miller - January 14th, 2009

Shigeo Shingo, the granddaddy of lean thinking industrial engineers once wrote, “Time is the shadow of motion” and a lot of other things that sound more cryptic than they should thanks to the wonders of inadequate translati

SNED – Single Night Exchange of Domiciles?

By Jon Miller - January 11th, 2009

Normally SMED in lean talk stands for single minute exchange of dies. Shigeo Shingo, industrial engineering consultant to Toyota wrote a book about this methodology and it has made possible small lot production and the reduction of los

Live Like Einstein, Operate Like Toyota

By Jon Miller - January 10th, 2009

We might say that Albert Einstein was the ultimate knowledge worker. He had a prolific brain which not only produced ideas which bent our understanding of space and time, he made it possible to blow up the world. He advanced our knowle

The Essential Lean Blogosphere of 2008

By Jon Miller - January 8th, 2009

Welcoming A New Voice As one of the elder statesmen of the lean community, John Shook is an important new voice to join the lean blogosphere in 2008. In this weekly post he takes a deep look at what give Toyota strength and flexibility

The Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 1

By Jon Miller - January 8th, 2009

トヨタ生産方式―脱規模の経営をめざして First published in 1978, Taiichi Ohno’s book, “The Toyota Production System: Aiming to Manage Free from Economies of Scale” is a classic. I have never r

Hospital Improves Patient Flow: 90% Seen in Under 60 Minutes

By Jon Miller - January 6th, 2009

There is a small hospital in Hiroshima, Japan which has been practicing the Toyota Production System for a few years. The Ideshita Clinic neurology and internal medicine hospital that was established in 1992 and has 170 employees. They

Proud to Be a Buckeye

By Ron Pereira - January 6th, 2009

As regular readers of the blog know I am a huge Ohio State University fan. Well, as many of my American readers probably know we lost to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl tonight with only seconds left on the clock. It was a true heart brea

Planning for One Piece Flow Cells

By Jon Miller - January 5th, 2009

Bas Timmermans from the Netherlands asked a question about OEE and one piece flow cells: How would you best plan such a cell? Would you make an hour-by-hour chart based on the cycle time and plan only the hours needed, leaving some con

Virtual Factory Tours on YouTube

By Jon Miller - January 4th, 2009

Keep your chin up, global manufacturing! Even though new factory orders dipped recently to record lows, there is plenty of reason to be positive. We are near the bottom. There may be another 6 months of tough times but it will be a slo

Ask Gemba

By Jon Miller - January 3rd, 2009

We want to make it easier to start conversations and find answers here at Gemba Panta Rei. You will see a number of changes to the blog design and functionality over 2009. It will be a series of small experiments. There is no master pl

5 Ways to Boost Kaizen Consciousness in 2009

By Jon Miller - January 1st, 2009

Improved quality, reduced cost, better teamwork, faster response to customer needs – there are as many reasons for practicing kaizen as there are tools, templates and skills to help you do so. But ultimately we practice kaizen be

The Kaizen Blitz!

By Ron Pereira - December 31st, 2008

Enjoy and Happy New Year all!

HP Printer Pokayoke Example

By Jon Miller - December 30th, 2008

This is a new HP C7250 printer we purchased a few weeks ago. It’s quite the desktop machine, with built in copier-scanner. Setting up the wireless was a skosh frustrating but all in all a great product. While installing the ink c

Yaruki: The Will to Win Even in Tough Times

By Jon Miller - December 28th, 2008

RC Bhargava, the Chairman, Maruti Suzuki India recounts the story of Maruti Suzuki and how the company overcame several challenges over the past decades by building a team-based management culture. In an India Times article titled Thin

Let’s Do Kaizen, Not Kaizan

By Jon Miller - December 23rd, 2008

It doesn’t really matter how you pronounce the Japanese word for continuous improvement through total involvement and a focus on the elimination of waste, variability and overburden. The word is kaizen, but you can call it kaizan

Full Court Press Time

By Ron Pereira - December 21st, 2008

“The heights by great men reached and kept, were not obtained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Things are going to slow down f

Answers to Lean Thinking Crossword Puzzle #1

By Jon Miller - December 20th, 2008

Spoiler alert! The answers to Lean Thinking Crossword Puzzle #1 are below. Here are the questions. Seven down is a bit of a pun, with the American spelling of cheque. Across 1. A pillar creates this between man and machine 2. Absolutel

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