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The First Step to Kaizen the Environment: Problem Awareness

By Jon Miller - October 15th, 2007

The last few days have been ones of closer observation and increased awareness of what goes on around me, in preparation for today, Blog Action Day, when fifteen thousand bloggers are writing about the cause of protecting our environme

Highlights from Lean Manufacturing Journey to the West

By Jon Miller - October 13th, 2007

On this trip to China I found a lot of openness to learning about new things, and Lean manufacturing in particular. People in China are certainly proud of their 4,000 years of history, but they are eager to learn and progress. We could

Guidelines for Continuous Moving Lines

By Jon Miller - October 11th, 2007

This article is in response to a question posted by a reader about guidelines for continuous moving lines as part of a Lean manufacturing implementation. This is not a comprehensive list of all things to consider when designing and man

Things to Leave Behind When Jumping Out of Airplanes

By Jon Miller - October 10th, 2007

Flying west on Sichuan Airlines today I saw the most bizarre in-flight safety video. The cartoon character flight attendant was the star of the show, with a video bubble of a real person explaining in sign language, while passable Engl

The Challenge of Lean Human Resource Development, and A Modest Proposal

By Jon Miller - October 9th, 2007

Good question from Alberto about how Chinese companies who are pursuing Lean manufacturing are managing to invest in their people. There is a lot of truth to the stereotype of the Chinese factory worker doing very simple tasks, in a ba

Questions About Lean Manufacturing in China

By Jon Miller - October 7th, 2007

I will be in China this week seeing some factories and talking to people about Lean manufacturing. Adapting and applying time-tested methods and approaches to new environments and new challenges is always a treat. I go with many questi

Kaizen Song: Kits

By Jon Miller - October 6th, 2007

It seems like many of the kaizen songs end up being about material flow and Lean logistics. At the risk of being campy, here is a lesson in Lean from musical royalty… Kits (To the melody of “Kiss” by Prince) U don’t have 2

Prioritizing the Elimination of the 7 Types of Waste

By Jon Miller - October 3rd, 2007

Tim Wood helps us remember the 7 types of waste, but he does not teach us about prioritizing the elimination of the 7 types of waste. “TIM WOOD” stands for Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Over-pr

Six Characteristics of a Lean Leader

By Ron Pereira - October 3rd, 2007

There are a plethora of books on leadership. I have read many such books and seem to gain something from each of them. I don’t always agree with the authors but in the end I feel better for studying these folks. But, if I were to

Ten Topics for Hansei After Kaizen Event

By Jon Miller - October 2nd, 2007

For better or worse, the 5-day kaizen event is a generally accepted and standard approach for rapid process improvement as part of a Lean implementation. There are both pros and cons to the 5-day kaizen event, of which more later. The

Who is your mentor?

By Ron Pereira - October 1st, 2007

No matter what you do for a living or your vocation in life I believe it is essential to have a mentor… or even better mentors. Paging Jory Around 13 years ago, I began my professional career after college working at Motorola

One Person, One Piece Flow

By Jon Miller - October 1st, 2007

One piece flow is not just for the manufacturing shop floor. Actually – even in office settings where one piece flow is starting to come into use it is done with numerous people. I have been through Kaizen Products’ Factory Flow si

Work is Love Made Visible

By Jon Miller - September 30th, 2007

In his 1923 book The Prophet, Lebanese American poet and artist and visionary Kahlil Gibran wrote Work is love made visible. What if love is not visible in work? What if you do not love what you do? Perhaps according to Kahlil Gibran,

Why Flow Counter Clockwise?

By Ron Pereira - September 30th, 2007

When designing a u-shaped cell it is often recommened that material flow in a counter clockwise direction. Why is this? It’s about the right hand Research shows that most people are right handed. I have heard that as many as 85%

Liquor Stores and Churches

By Ron Pereira - September 27th, 2007

They say there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Here’s an example of why this is sadly true in many cases. It’s been proven that there is a strong correlation between the number of churches and liquor stores in a commun

Top 10 Success Factors for 5S

By Jon Miller - September 27th, 2007

Are you struggling with sustaining your 5S efforts as part of a Lean implementation? You’re not alone. We conducted a poll during a Lean facilitator training class and found that many experience common barriers and struggles in m

11 Ways to Improve Customer Service

By Jon Miller - September 26th, 2007

Marcie MacRae posted an excellent article about customer service titled 10 ways to improve customer service based on her deep experience in that area and the 10 Commandments of Kaizen, which are rephrased here: 1. Let go of your fixed

The Bridge Builder

By Ron Pereira - September 25th, 2007

I recently heard this poem. While I am not a big poem kind of fellow I must admit this one resonated with me. It summarizes why I love what I do… which is to find better ways to do things better. Put another way my goal in

Something Lacking in the TPS House

By Jon Miller - September 24th, 2007

People point out from time to time that there is something lacking in the TPS house used to explain the Toyota Production System. Typically it is represented with the two pillars of just in time and jidoka, with a foundation of kaizen,

A New Lean Metric: ROI LT

By Ron Pereira - September 23rd, 2007

When teaching value stream mapping one of the hardest metrics for people to grasp is production lead time (PLT) which is also commonly referred to as throughput time. Here is a quick summary of how PLT works. Say there are 3 proces

Gary Convis on the Role of Management in Lean Manufacturing

By Jon Miller - September 23rd, 2007

Gary Convis is the Chairman of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky and also serves in Officer roles for Toyota’s North American holding companies. Gary Convis helped start up NUMMI, and he was the first American President of a ve

We Live in a Pull Universe

By Jon Miller - September 21st, 2007

Lean manufacturing works, and this has been proven through decades of practice. Yet decades are admittedly not much when measured against geologic time. Some aspects of TPS such building in quality, getting ideas from people who actual

This Too is a Kanban

By Jon Miller - September 20th, 2007

The orthodox description of a kanban is a rectangular card in a plastic sleeve used to reorder materials from a supplier or an upstream process, or a triangular metal plate used to signal production for a process that requires changeov

Where is Ron?

By Ron Pereira - September 20th, 2007

Hello from London, England. I wanted to drop a line and apologize for my lack of blogging action! I have been extremely busy as of late and thus my blogging has taken a bit of a hit. I typically post my blogs in the evenings but

How the Skill Matrix Enables Downstream Pull

By Jon Miller - September 19th, 2007

Downstream pull, one piece at a time, works not only for inventory control by signaling production or material movement, but also for maintaining smooth balance and flow of work done by people. This can be manual factory work such as a

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