Gemba Academy

How Does Lean Thinking Apply to Strategy?

By Jon Miller - May 24th, 2007

How does Lean thinking apply to strategy? This was a good question that made me think. One way of answering this question might refer to hoshin kanri (policy deployment) but in fact this is more about policy than strategy. If hoshin ka

Lowes Misses the Mark

By Ron Pereira - May 23rd, 2007

A few months ago I blogged about how a company called Qualpro was (and is) claiming its MVT methodology was far superior to Six Sigma. One of their success stories was Lowes. Their angle was that since Home Depot is a “Six

Medicare May Stop Paying for Hospital Errors

By Jon Miller - May 23rd, 2007

Medicare may stop paying for hospital errors in 2008, according to a May 22, 2007 article from IndyStar.com titled Hospital-borne ailments face Medicare budget ax. According to the article: Medical mistakes are deadly and expensive. In

Does Toyota need Six Sigma?

By Ron Pereira - May 23rd, 2007

I bet the title of this post caught some of my Lean friends off guard. Fear not I am not going to talk about how Lean is about eliminating waste and Six Sigma is about reducing variation. I have said this before and regret it. T

Toyota Number One in the World… in Recalls?

By Jon Miller - May 22nd, 2007

Not two days after imploring everyone to do kaizen like Toyota, we’re reminded that no matter how good you are at lean manufacturing, kaizen, and continuous improvement, if you focus too much on eliminating muda (waste) while ign

Boeing starts assembly of 787 Dreamliner

By Ron Pereira - May 22nd, 2007

I read today that Boeing started production of the much anticipated 787 Dreamliner. Many of my fellow blogging friends have previously commented on the method by which Boeing is manufacturing this monster of an airplane. With this s

Lean and Tissue Donation

By Ron Pereira - May 21st, 2007

I came across an interesting article from the Dayton Daily News where they discussed how leaders of the Community Blood Center/Community Tissue Services teamed up with Lean practitioners from Sinclair Community College. The article e

Do Kaizen Like Toyota

By Jon Miller - May 20th, 2007

How do we do kaizen like Toyota? Just the fact that we’re hearing this question more often is a good sign that either a) there is a growing awareness about there being a right way to do kaizen, or b) Toyota’s PR machine is

Announcing the 5S Challenge Winners!

By Jon Miller - May 18th, 2007

Thank you Konrad, Ron, Robert, Nancy, Chris, Eric, Jason, Rajdeep and Dee for your thoughtful answers to the question “which of the 5S is hardest and why?” There was a lot of emphasis in on keeping it going, the 5th S known

Fire at Will!

By Ron Pereira - May 18th, 2007

(I came across this link over at Evolving Excellence and just had to comment) Move over Dilbert. KT Cat, eat your heart out. Check out this piece of work from a Six Sigma basher extraordinaire! I always say to be nice to KT Cat a

Finance 101 by Taiichi

By Ron Pereira - May 18th, 2007

In Chapter Six of Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management we read about the Profit formulas. I must confess I thought I completely understood this concept when in fact I was only partly correct. Let’s explore it tonight. When we

Lean Manufacturing by the Numbers

By Jon Miller - May 17th, 2007

Lean manufacturing by the numbers: Zero inventory Zero defects Zero accidents 1 piece flow 1 point lesson 2 bin system 2 point control (AB control, full work control) 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) 3 don’ts of assembly 3 don’ts o

Welcome to the New LSSA

By Ron Pereira - May 17th, 2007

Welcome to the new Lean Six Sigma Academy (LSSA). After lots of “blogging research” I have decided to move to WordPress. Blogger is great and very easy to use and I will miss some of their user friendly features. Bu

About this Blog

By Jon Miller - May 16th, 2007

Introduction to Gemba Panta Rei Gemba Panta Rei is the corporate blog of Gemba Research, a kaizen consulting firm. In this blog we will share our thoughts on Lean manufacturing, kaizen, Lean healthcare, Lean governemnt, Lean transactio

Zero Equals Seven in the Kaizen Mind

By Jon Miller - May 15th, 2007

Taiichi Ohno taught us that even when we think “there is no waste here” you can find at least 7 types of waste. He was known to carry a piece of chalk around and draw circles around managers who could not see these wastes.

Riding a Bike

By Ron Pereira - May 14th, 2007

This weekend my 4 year old daughter learned to ride her bike without training wheels. She has been after me for quite awhile to let her have a shot but I have been hesitant. I just didn’t think she was ready. But after she saw her 5

Misconceptions

By Ron Pereira - May 13th, 2007

The first several chapters of Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management spend a lot of time discussing misconceptions. Ohno said: “Very often after we try we find that the results are completely opposite of what we expected, and this is

To KPO or Not to KPO?

By Jon Miller - May 13th, 2007

Here is a bit of heresy that has been rolling around my brain lately: having a KPO / Six Sigma Competency Center / Office of Operational Excellence / Continuous Improvement Office hurts rather than helps a Lean effort. Best case, these

Waiting in US Immigrations Line

By Ron Pereira - May 12th, 2007

I have really enjoyed learning more about the Queuing Theory from our friend, Peter Abilla, over at the excellent shmula blog. Peter’s most recent post is about the Queuing Psychology at the Gus Pump. Yesterday I traveled home from E

5S Challenge: Which S Is Most Difficult and Why?

By Jon Miller - May 12th, 2007

“Which of the 5S is most difficult?” I received this question during a class I was teaching recently. I’ve never been asked this before. People often say “self-discipline is the most difficult” or “s

Taguchi L18 DOE

By Ron Pereira - May 9th, 2007

Design of Experiments (DOE) are perhaps the single most powerful tool I have found to screen, characterize, and optimize a process. For an introduction to what DOE’s are please read this post. Taguchi L18 Tonight I want to focus in a

Will the Real TPS Sensei Please Stand Up?

By Jon Miller - May 9th, 2007

Tetsuo Hoshino is the Chairman of Gifu Auto Body Industry, a Toyota Group company. He was a student of Taiichi Ohno. Since 1990 he has taught the Toyota Production System to 20,000 senior officials in large Korean companies. Hoshino re

Repetitions versus Replications

By Ron Pereira - May 8th, 2007

Many Lean & Six Sigma practitioners struggle to differentiate between a repetition and replication. Normally this confusion arises when dealing with Design of Experiments (DOE). Let’s use an example to explain the difference. Pai

Seven Ideas Towards a Healing Workplace

By Jon Miller - May 8th, 2007

The entry last week on Standards, Abnormality and the Ideal seems to have struck a chord with folks. I’ve been thinking further about the idea of negative accidents or negative safety incidents and it is quite sound in theory and

Could Work Kill You?