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Chrysler’s (Lean?) Six Sigma Future

By Jon Miller - August 5th, 2007

The Chrysler Corporation has a new CEO, Bob Nardelli. Nardelli Picked to Run Chrysler in Industry Shift, the August 6th, Wall Street Journal reports. Mr. Nardelli was most recently in the news for bringing a controversial combativeness

Bad Metrics in a Hair Salon?

By Ron Pereira - August 5th, 2007

I got my haircut yesterday. I am cheap and like the $12 action at Great Clips right up the street. They do a good job so I can’t see paying $35 (or more) for some overpriced version of the same thing. As the stylist was bring

God’s Country

By Ron Pereira - August 5th, 2007

As I previously explained my family and I took a roadtrip the last few weeks. We drove from Keller, Texas to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. We traveled through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota on our wa

Transportation Muda

By Ron Pereira - August 4th, 2007

We spent the last few weeks in Canada visiting family. We had an awesome trip. As we were driving from Texas (yes driving with 3 kids more than 2400 miles) I had my eyes peeled for some good lean or six sigma topics. While driving

Is IT the Key to Improving Healthcare Quality and Efficiency?

By Jon Miller - July 30th, 2007

Is IT the key to improving healthcare quality and efficiency? The majority of healthcare opinion leaders seem to think so. The findings from the Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Opinion Leaders Survey appeared in the July 30 edition

Facing the Giants

By Ron Pereira - July 30th, 2007

I recently watched the movie Facing the Giants and it made me rethink some things related to lean and six sigma. For those not familiar with the movie, Facing the Giants is a Christian based movie about an American football coach who g

Why Is Your Lean Effort Failing?

By Jon Miller - July 29th, 2007

The Lean Blog is always a good place for insights and discussion on why Lean efforts struggle or fail. Previous discussions have delved into Lean efforts that are in fact LAME. Mark Graban wrote about the survey format of the Lean Inst

The Importance of “So What?” in A3 Kaizen

By Jon Miller - July 28th, 2007

One of the things that makes Toyota-style problem solving so effective is the insistence on true root cause analysis and countermeasures. In simple terms this is known as “asking why 5 times” or “5 why”. Instead

5 Why’s Survey

By Ron Pereira - July 28th, 2007

My fellow Keller, Texas lean blogging pal Mark, of Lean Blog fame, is running a survey. Following up on the LEI survey that was released and discussed here, I’ve been talking with a few folks offline about what the “root ca

A Closed Mitt and an Open Mind

By Jon Miller - July 26th, 2007

Sorting through old documents as part of my regular 5S at the office I came across another consulting firm’s Lean training materials, collected about a decade ago. These explained Lean manufacturing and the idea of eliminating wa

Kaizen Rules – 9 & 10

By Ron Pereira - July 26th, 2007

This week has been about all things kaizen. I have to come clean and admit I wrote this entire series last weekend as I was preparing to take off on vacation with my family. Thanks to the greatness of WordPress I was able to delay the

Free Skill Matrix Template

By Jon Miller - July 25th, 2007

Here is a free skill matrix template in Microsoft Excel format. We receive many requests on this blog and to Gemba Research about the skill matrix template. The skill matrix is a very broadly useful visual management tool for people de

Kaizen Rules – 7 & 8

By Ron Pereira - July 25th, 2007

Want to win $50? Read this entire article to find out how. We have officially rounded the corner on our kaizen rules series. If you are just joining us you can catch up by checking these posts out: Rules 1 & 2 Rules 3 & 4 Rules

Kaizen Rules – 5 & 6

By Ron Pereira - July 24th, 2007

Tonight we continue with our multi-part kaizen rules series. For a recap of previous kaizen rules please check out: Rules 1 & 2 Rules 3 & 4 Rule 5: Correct mistakes at once If you are walking through your office, factory, or ev

TPS & the Tao

By Jon Miller - July 23rd, 2007

Some time ago a woman who was studying Taoism and also reading Taiichi Ohno said, “The more I read Taiichi Ohno’s book The Toyota Production System-Beyond Large-Scale Production, the more I believe that his philosophies are

Kaizen Rules – 3 & 4

By Ron Pereira - July 23rd, 2007

Yesterday we discussed the first two rules of kaizen. Tonight we will discuss excuses and perfection. Rule 3: Stop making excuses. Start questioning current practices. When we encounter a defect or failure we should not make excuses

A Kaizen Team’s Secret Ingredient: Negative People

By Jon Miller - July 22nd, 2007

For many years Toyota people have said “No problem” is a problem (困らない事は困った事だ） so these negative people are a gift, are they not? In fact, you could say that a kaizen team’s secret ingredient i

Kaizen Rules – 1 & 2

By Ron Pereira - July 22nd, 2007

This week my plan is to blog about all things kaizen. I personally believe kaizen is the key to long term success – both professionally and personally. Often times we associate the word kaizen with “kaizen events” which are short

True Essence of Continuous Improvement

By Ron Pereira - July 22nd, 2007

If you have not visited the shmula blog today please do. Pete’s article on Hansei – What is Really Important? inspired me. I hope it does you as well.

Kaizen Song: Downstream Pull

By Jon Miller - July 19th, 2007

This kaizen song is dedicated to all of you materials managers and planners out there working to establish pull systems… Downstream Pull (to the melody of “Downtown Train” by Tom Waits) Line side another yellow andon

The problem with that is…

By Ron Pereira - July 19th, 2007

For some reason some folks seem dead against making things better. One of the easiest ways I can tell if I am dealing with a concrete head is by simply listening to the words they use. For example, whenever I hear someone say (after

There is No Honor in Muri

By Jon Miller - July 18th, 2007

Unreasonableness is a six syllable, sixteen letter word. It’s a lot simpler to say muri in Japanese. Certainly less precious breath is wasted without the four extra syllables. Muri arises when you try to fight variability at the

Final Thoughts of The 4-Hour Workweek

By Ron Pereira - July 18th, 2007

I finally finished “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferris. This book was quite the emotional journey. Before I even read it I was both skeptical and encouraged at the same time. I then came across an interesting conc

Lean for Airports (Dare to Dream…)

By Jon Miller - July 17th, 2007

The new Nagoya International Airport was famously built under budget and faster than scheduled thanks to help in Lean thinking from Toyota advisors. In another example of public-private partnership, a July 17, 2007 Computerworld UK art

Challenge, Kaizen, Genchi Genbutsu, Respect, Teamwork

By Jon Miller - July 16th, 2007

Challenge, kaizen, genchi genbutsu, respect, and teamwork. These are the five ideas that were codified as the fundamental principles that guide the actions of Toyota people in the “Toyota Way 2001”. We might call them ̶

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