Gemba Academy

Continuous Improvement vs. Continual Improvement

By Jon Miller - June 8th, 2008

Most organizations implementing lean principles today do not in fact practice “continuous improvement”. What they practice would be better termed “continual improvement”. The distinction between continual improv

Entropy, Salmon, and Swimming

By Ron Pereira - June 4th, 2008

A can of soup falls if you drop it, your car tire blows out when a nail punctures it, and eventually my barbeque grill cools down after grilling steaks, even in the hot Texas air. Why is this? Allow me to explain. While these things ar

Eight Reasons Your Lean/Six Sigma Initiative Could Fail

By Ron Pereira - June 1st, 2008

Launching a Lean or Six Sigma initiative signals a move towards operational excellence and a dedication to continuous improvement. Yet, navigating this journey successfully requires awareness of certain critical challenges that are oft

Conference Calls, Kids, and SMED

By Ron Pereira - May 30th, 2008

My wife is out of town to visit some relatives which means it’s me and my three kiddos for the weekend. Here is the sticky part. I had to arrange an important conference call today and was totally stressing out on how I was going to

8 Dimensions of Quality

By Ron Pereira - May 28th, 2008

The definition of quality is often a hotly debated topic. While it may seem intuitive, when we get right down to it, “quality” is a difficult concept to define with any precision. The most fundamental definition of a quality produc

A Lesson in Courage

By Ron Pereira - May 27th, 2008

“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.” -Baltasar Gracian Family Vacation Over the Memorial Day weekend my family and I went on a much needed vacation. We normally go to Sea World each summer, but since my wife is almost 8 month

Definitely Not the Pull System: Anderson Cooper 360

By Jon Miller - May 26th, 2008

Not exactly breaking news, but highly amusing: video link How many wastes can you spot in this video? What are the causes of these wastes? How would you redesign this system? Despite the “push”, is this system better or wor

Toyota’s Secret to Kaizen Success: Unpaid OT?

By Jon Miller - May 24th, 2008

There was an interesting development at Toyota last week. Articles reported titles such as Toyota to raise overtime pay for ‘voluntary’ work. Titles included terms of interest, not often combined: kaizen, voluntary, overwor

Make a Mistake… Own up to it

By Ron Pereira - May 22nd, 2008

A lesson I’ve known for a long time was just reinforced for me here at a restaurant in the London Heathrow airport. Here’s what happened. I arrived at the airport early so decided to sit down for a nice English breakfast (

Lessons from the airport

By Ron Pereira - May 18th, 2008

Recently, in the DFW airport, as I was buying a bottle of water I watched an older man chastise two of his younger workers for wearing earrings. Apparently, in this store you aren’t allowed to wear things in your ears. Fair enough. B

What You Find on the Floor Tells You a Lot

By Jon Miller - May 15th, 2008

Look down and pay attention to what is on the floor you walk on, the next time you walk the floor. What you find on the floor tells you a lot about what kind of thinking you will find on the floor, carpeted or concrete. Most of us look

Calculating Optimal Crew Size in Mixed Model Cells

By Ron Pereira - May 13th, 2008

I have a question for you. How would you staff a cell that produces multiple products, all with varying cycle times? In this article I will offer my thoughts and am excited to hear your comments as to how you would (or do) approach it

Overheard in Amsterdam: I Just Want the #$%@ to Clean Things Up

By Jon Miller - May 12th, 2008

It was midnight body time and 8AM in Amsterdam. Sitting in the KLM lounge waiting for a connection, the two men in the chairs next to me speak with American accents: “So I want to go over what they are doing. Hour by hour charts?

How metrics like OEE often dictate behavior

By Ron Pereira - May 11th, 2008

A reader of the blog asked me the following question via email. I am a production engineer for 3 packaging lines and our overall indicator is overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). Our OEE is calculated using the maximum speed that the

Why Do Employees Underperform?

By Ron Pereira - May 9th, 2008

The best free lean magazine I know of, Industry Week, recently discussed an interesting survey done by LifeCare Inc. where they investigated why some employees underperform in their jobs. While I am from the school that says you nee

Is Toyota in Trouble?

By Ron Pereira - May 8th, 2008

When I launched Google News this morning my eyes were immediately drawn to the headline “Toyota Posts First Profit Drop in Three Years.” To summarize the article: Net income fell 28 percent to 316.8 billion yen ($3 billion) in the

Calisthenics, Kaizen and Your Daily Stretch

By Jon Miller - May 7th, 2008

I was lucky enough to witness a shift start at a local distribution center today. Like most Japanese companies and too few American companies the shift leader instructed all 40 or so workers in about 5 minutes of calisthenics: simple s

Stumped in the Toilet

By Ron Pereira - May 6th, 2008

I’d like to think I am a relatively intelligent person. I graduated with a 3.8 GPA during my undergrad studies and a 3.7 GPA while getting an MBA. But, alas, today I realized I still have much to learn as I attempted to use

Where does the time go?

By Jon Miller - May 5th, 2008

That’s what I wondered when seeing that it’s been nearly a week since the last post. It’s an idle question, until you start to think about it. Then you get dizzy, stop and look to those who came before us for insight.

The Enemy of Better

By Ron Pereira - May 5th, 2008

Do you aspire to be the best? How about your company… do they want to be the best? If so, I contend this is the deadliest goal you or your organization can have. Allow me to explain. You see if you are indeed the “best” as de

Confused about Time

By Ron Pereira - May 1st, 2008

For those new to continuous improvement the concept of time can be confusing. In this article I hope to clear up some common misunderstandings. Takt Time The word takt comes to us from the German language and literally means pace or rh

Endless Meetings Speed Up the Pace of Change on the Gemba

By Jon Miller - April 30th, 2008

An article in the May 1, 2008 issue of Nikkei Business titled “Endless Meetings Speed Up the Pace of Change on the Gemba” (ダラダラ会議が現場のスピードアップを生む) interviewed the chairman and profiled

Life is like a bowl of oranges

By Ron Pereira - April 29th, 2008

As I mentioned towards the end of our most recent video the demonstration with the oranges, pebbles, sand, and water can be used to explain a far more important life lesson. Before this, please allow me to thank you for your comments a

Lean Strategies for Workforce Development in Manufacturing

By Jon Miller - April 27th, 2008

A while back, I attended a meeting of CAMPS, the Center for Advanced Manufacturing in Puget Sound. Like many consortia around the U.S. and in other countries, a group of manufacturers, local government, academia, and service providers

Boeing Volunteers Helping Non-profits with Lean

By Jon Miller - April 23rd, 2008

An article in the April 18-12, 2008 issue of the Puget Sound Business Journal caught our eye. Titled Penguins will benefit from jet maker’s efficiency lessons it describes the efforts of Boeing employees as lean trainers who have

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