Gemba Academy

Walk Slowly

By Ron Pereira - January 6th, 2008

Do you aspire to be a better leader in 2008? If so, you may consider walking slower through your office or shop talking to folks more than you do today. In lean speak we often use the phrase genchi genbutsu which basically means to go

The Cadence of Kaizen

By Jon Miller - January 4th, 2008

Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning “to change and make good,” embodying both the philosophy an the practice of continuous improvement in business as well as personal life. We are often asked about the “right” way

Management Improvement Carnival #27 (Best of 2007)

By Ron Pereira - January 3rd, 2008

John Hunter asked me to write the latest Management Carnival. Normally, bloggers look at the previous month and share some links of their favorite posts. Since we are at the start of a new year I thought I would change things up a

How to Sustain Kaizen? Follow Up with the Tenacity of the Terminator

By Jon Miller - January 2nd, 2008

Yesterday Mike Wroblewski asked How do we Sustain Kaizen Results? on his blog Got Boondoggle? This is a great topic and one that fits in with the theme of sustainability that is on the minds of lean thinkers like Toyota President Watan

Lloyd Carr’s Final Message

By Ron Pereira - January 2nd, 2008

As even semi-regular readers of the blog know I am a huge Ohio State fan. But since it is bowl season I am all about the Big Ten and was actually, yeah I am choking a bit as I say this, cheering loudly for the Michigan Wolverines yes

Comments on Toyota President Watanabe's New Year's Greeting

By Jon Miller - January 1st, 2008

Toyota entered the popular consciousness in 2007 by overtaking General Motors as the number one automobile manufacturer in the world by vehicles sold. Those of us who study lean manufacturing know that Toyota with its production system

One Year of Blogging!

By Ron Pereira - December 30th, 2007

Close to one year ago I started this little blog with the post Lean or Six Sigma?. Truth be told I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing (and am still learning) but knew I loved to write. I also knew I loved teaching people about lean a

101 Kaizen Templates

By Jon Miller - December 26th, 2007

January 2008 will mark 10 years Gemba Research has been in business. This blog has been active for just over four years now. We are reflecting on the past 10 years in an effort to renew our purpose and focus our energies. We will do th

Tap Your Breaks Early and Often to Keep Work Flowing

By Jon Miller - December 20th, 2007

Here’s another counterintuitive truth to Lean: the more often you stop, the more smoothly things will move along. The caveat is that these stops should be small stops, as early and as far away from the actual problem point as pos

OEE – Not Just for TPM Programs!

By Ron Pereira - December 20th, 2007

If someone were to force me into a corner and only allow me to use one metric in my plant I would have to choose Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). The reason I would pick it is simple… it is really 3 metrics in one! Here is a qu

Lean Management Means Shifting from PPT to PPS

By Jon Miller - December 18th, 2007

One of the fundamental behavior changes required by organizations today in order to successfully practice lean management is to shift from communicating via PPT to communicating via PPS. By PPT we mean Microsoft PowerPoint and by PPS w

The Lion and the Gnat

By Ron Pereira - December 18th, 2007

One of my kiddos picked The Aesop for Children for their bedtime book. It is chalk full of short fables with some sort of theme associated with them. One of the fables I read called “The Lion and the Gnat” was an excel

Lean Enterprise Rules of Three

By Jon Miller - December 17th, 2007

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar.” That’s from an eu

The Secret Lives of Toyota Term Employees, Episode 4

By Jon Miller - December 13th, 2007

Somehow, I Will Get through This Week I have been reluctant to post Episode 4 in the Secret Lives of Toyota Term Employees because the continuing story of the Tahara plant worker Maruo is so bleak. Last week Kevin Meyer at the Evolving

Start Simple, Go Back to Basics, Repeat

By Jon Miller - December 12th, 2007

This is an image of the assembly line at Toyota’s Honsha plantin Koromo City, over 60 years ago. We may think we have come a long way from this, but in fact nearly every month I see a 21st century factory that looks not too diffe

Reader Question: Project Handoffs

By Ron Pereira - December 12th, 2007

A reader of the blog recently sent me the following question. Ron, I have a question. Here at my “office” we’ve been doing LSS for about two years now. After a successful Green/Black belt project completion we “

Are Suggestion “Boxes” the Best Way to Go?

By Ron Pereira - December 11th, 2007

A recent article by my friend Jon Miller got me thinking about suggestion boxes. For those unaware many companies ask their employees to submit improvement ideas into a box. Management then looks at the ideas and in some cases acts on

Be Like Tony – Smile More!

By Ron Pereira - December 10th, 2007

OK, I admit it. I have jumped on the Dallas Cowboy’s bandwagon. For those who don’t follow American football the Dallas Cowboys are having their best season ever. They have won 12 games and only lost 1. Their one loss was to a team

Toyota’s Suggestion System: 56 Years and Still Going Strong

By Jon Miller - December 9th, 2007

In 1951 Toyota launched its Creative Idea Suggestion System. It was largely a copy of suggestion systems that were in place in U.S. companies at the time, namely the Ford Motor Company. Toyota made some notable innovations to it over t

Lean Journey Advice from an Optimistic Hungarian Scientist

By Jon Miller - December 5th, 2007

I spent last week in Hungary on consulting assignment. Several times I heard from the locals, “We Hungarians are a pessimistic people” but they are making slow but steady progress with Lean nonetheless. I was also introduce

Continuous Improvement Begins with You!

By Ron Pereira - December 5th, 2007

One of the things that drives me batty is how hard some people make continuous improvement. Some think you have to go to 2 or 4 weeks of training to make something better. Some think if you don’t have a green or black belt you are no

No Standards No Kaizen

By Ron Pereira - December 3rd, 2007

I don’t know the exact quote and I am 38,000 feet in the air (I am flying home from London) so I can’t look it up… but Taiichi Ohno once said something like, “Without standards there can be no kaizen.” What does this mean? We

Direct Instruction, Standardized Work and Kaizen

By Jon Miller - December 2nd, 2007

I learned about something called Direct Instruction in chapter seven of Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres. This book is a light and entertaining read on statistics and evidence-based decisions in marketing, education, healthcare and governm

Sensei and Sensibility

By Jon Miller - November 29th, 2007

Please excuse the pun. I’m increasingly convinced that awareness and sensibility outweigh knowledge and capability when it comes to being a Lean leader or teacher of kaizen. Taiichi Ohno called for a “revolution of awarenes

I am Addicted to Kaizen

By Ron Pereira - November 29th, 2007

Hi, my name is Ron and I am addicted to kaizen. I was first introduced to kaizen years ago and while I did like it I didn’t go overboard. I worked on a few point kaizen events but never really accomplished more than some nice

Gemba Academy Blog

Blog Archive