Gemba Academy

Kaizen Song: Mr. Pareto

By Jon Miller - July 10th, 2008

This one was inspired by hearing Mr. Roboto on the radio shortly after helping a team make good use of Mr. Pareto’s chart and related 80-20 principle during a lean implementation planning session. What else rhymes with “kil

Is Batching Always Bad?

By Ron Pereira - July 9th, 2008

I was recently skimming the archives of one of my favorite “blogging” blogs – Problogger – when I read something that stopped me dead in my tracks. The thing that slammed me into this proverbial brick wall was an article titled

Is it Kaizen or Just Good Management?

By Jon Miller - July 9th, 2008

One of the risks, or should we say unintended consequences of a successful lean implementation is that people become unhappy when “there are no more problems to solve”. This seemed like an odd statement when it was first heard spok

Less Talking, More Action

By Ron Pereira - July 8th, 2008

“Too many words. Let them just see what we do.” -Blessed Mother Teresa This is an odd quote for a blog that primarily depends on the written word in order to communicate. With this in mind, I’ll keep this post short and sweet. In

The Leisure to do Kaizen

By Jon Miller - July 7th, 2008

The most difficult thing about sustaining a lean implementation to the point where it becomes an indelible part of the way of working is not about understanding the techniques and methods of the Toyota Production System, not about brin

The Art of Instruction

By Ron Pereira - July 7th, 2008

“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” ~Albert Einstein Last night we discussed two different learning theories – entity and incremental. I read about these theories i

Two Approaches to Learning

By Ron Pereira - July 6th, 2008

Have you ever watched the movie Searching for Bobby Fisher? It’s the one about the child prodigy chess player. Well the child, Josh Waitzkin, is all grown up now and has written a book called The Art of Learning. I am not done with t

Happy 4th of July!

By Ron Pereira - July 4th, 2008

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.” ~Dwight D. Eisenhower A me

The Ultimate Productivity System: Zen to Done

By Ron Pereira - July 2nd, 2008

Leo Babauta is the founder of one of the most popular blogs around called Zen Habits (almost 60,000 subscribers as of this article). While he doesn’t write about lean manufacturing, per se, he does touch on many lean philosophies lik

Turn off the Lights

By Ron Pereira - July 1st, 2008

Walmart is in the news with their new logo. Something that isn’t getting as much press is a new thing Walmart is also beginning to do in their stores… turn off the lights. Where are the waffles? I was recently in my local

Kaizen: Do What You Can Do Today

By Jon Miller - June 30th, 2008

Some of the best kaizen ideas can be truly very little things. It is the accumulation of small changes daily that give us the habit of coming up with creative ideas. If you don’t have on in your mind already, within the next few

Ban the Stop Watch!

By Ron Pereira - June 30th, 2008

Allow me to introduce Joe, the plant Industrial Engineer. Joe is a nice boy fresh out of college. On this particular day old Joe comes popping out of his cubicle in his Dockers and white polo shirt holding a clip board and stop watch.

Ambiguous Visual Controls: No Running in the Airplane

By Jon Miller - June 29th, 2008

The more you look the more you see ambiguous visual controls. Some are well-intentioned, while others appear to be half-hearted attempts to comply with some bureaucratic requirements. Others hint at hidden efficiencies or inefficiencie

Jedi Kaizen: Is the Force with You?

By Jon Miller - June 28th, 2008

The type of quick improvements or “just do it kaizen” is sometimes called JDI. Recently I heard it pronounced “jedi kaizen” in passing. The jedi are a group of monks in the Star Wars series. As monks, they live

The Spiritual Side of Continuous Improvement

By Ron Pereira - June 26th, 2008

I’m exhausted – both physically and mentally. For the past 5 days I’ve been involved in an extremely intense kaizen. One could even call it a kaikaku – or radical change event. I’ve coached, learned, cleaned, painted, and swe

Genjitsu: The Only Reality

By Jon Miller - June 24th, 2008

There are those moments when the right words come together in an a way that resonates deeply and inspires one to write them down and repeat them to others. The words by themselves are not profound, and one suspects that even rearranged

What is Value?

By Ron Pereira - June 20th, 2008

“Above all, lean practitioners must be relentlessly focused on the customer when specifying and creating value.” -Womack & Jones, Lean Thinking I love Seth Godin’s blog. He has written some amazing posts over the year

5 Steps to Developing a Tiger Like Attitude

By Ron Pereira - June 17th, 2008

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” -Thomas Jefferson Since watching and reading about the greatness that is T

Management Improvement Carnival #37

By Ron Pereira - June 15th, 2008

Once again, I have the privilege of hosting the latest edition of the Management Improvement Carnival. So without further delay here are some of my favorite posts from around the blogosphere over the last 30 days or so. Are we Cowboys

5 Steps to Developing a Thinking Organization

By Ron Pereira - June 11th, 2008

Scott recently asked: Ron, you mention “thinking production system” instead of Toyota. How do you learn to “think” better? What’s your recommendation for that? I agree with your premise but in my experience, learning to think

Strategies to Sustain Operations Excellence

By Ron Pereira - June 9th, 2008

This is an abridged version of a presentation I recently gave at a manufacturing excellence conference. If you’d like to download the video follow this link to Google Video and click on download video.

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

Gemba Academy Blog

Blog Archive