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Sorry So Grumpy Lately

By Ron Pereira - April 10th, 2007

I did some hansei today on my drive home from work and realized I have been too grumpy lately. I jumped all over the airlines industry… then went after some software folks… and then tonight I had prepared to pummel a

Jidoka – The Forgotten Pillar

By Ron Pereira - April 9th, 2007

In the Toyota Production System house there are two pillars. The one pillar most of the books are written about is JIT. You know all the fun stuff about one piece flow and pull. But there is an entire other pillar that, in my opinion

A Fairly Lean Healthcare Experience

By Jon Miller - April 9th, 2007

I hope everyone who celebrates Easter had a good Easter Sunday, and those of you who don’t also had a good weekend. Thanks to a culture change in my throat brought on by some visiting Streptococcus, I didn’t have a good wee

The Airline Companies Amaze Me

By Ron Pereira - April 8th, 2007

In Lean and Six Sigma we speak about the importance of understanding value from the perspective of the customer. If you miss this all the Kanban and Control Charts in the world won’t help you. Most of the airline companies in

Happy Easter!

By Ron Pereira - April 7th, 2007

I, along with my family, wish you a safe and happy Easter. I hope you are able to enjoy some time off with friends and loved ones.

Layoffs, Strategy and the Bimodal Hump

By Jon Miller - April 6th, 2007

If you haven’t exercised your neck muscles lately, read the first few paragraphs of the article Short-Circuited: Cutting Jobs as Corporate Strategy and shake your head in disbelief as you scratch Circuit City off of your shopping

Un-Lean Lean Companies

By Ron Pereira - April 6th, 2007

I recently purchased some Value Stream Mapping software and got a kick out the experience. Here I was buying software to help me battle waste and inefficiency, right? Well I go to this company’s website and click “buy now” next t

Superfactory Training

By Ron Pereira - April 5th, 2007

I recently came across a news article about our friends over at the Superfactory. It seems they have recently launched some elearning and the prices are very affordable compared to some elearning I have seen from others. Upon further e

How to Get What You Want in Four Easy Steps

By Jon Miller - April 5th, 2007

About 20 years ago in a catchy pop song Joe Jackson said “You can’t get what you want till you know what you want.” I didn’t think much about those words at the time, but these words seem to contain deeper wisdom as the years g

Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED)

By Ron Pereira - April 4th, 2007

One of the core principles to making a Lean system work is Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED). You may also hear it referred to as “Quick Changeover” especially in western companies. Common Misconceptions Contrary to what some t

How to Achieve Zero Defects

By Ron Pereira - April 3rd, 2007

A few days ago my friend Jon Miller posted an interesting blog where the discussion was how to achieve zero defects. A few of my favorite bloggers, John Hunter and Pete Abilla, posted comments to Jon’s blog so I will not repe

Skill Matrix Tutorial, Part 1

By Jon Miller - April 2nd, 2007

We receive a lot of questions on this blog about something called the Skill Matrix and how to use it. It seems to be an area of high interest so I will write about it more regularly. The Skill Matrix is a very useful visual management

Bloggers Unite in Keller Texas

By Ron Pereira - April 1st, 2007

Since starting Lean Six Sigma Academy I have been fortunate enough to form many new friends. Perhaps the most interesting friendship I have made is with one of the “giants” of the Lean blogosphere, Mark Graban. Mark and I live in t

Is Zero Defects Possible?

By Jon Miller - April 1st, 2007

Sonu asked: “Is zero defects possible? If so, what are the steps. We are dealing with around 300 parameters each having minimum 25 to 30 parameters to be met. We find it difficult to maintain zero defect for all parameters. Any t

Textron Six Sigma

By Ron Pereira - March 30th, 2007

I recently came across this article written about the Six Sigma program at Textron. In the article Bob Zimering, a Textron Master Black Belt, discusses Six Sigma at Textron and responds to some of its critics. When discussing th

How Not to Screw up Pluses and Deltas

By Ron Pereira - March 29th, 2007

An extremely powerful, yet often misused, tool is pluses and deltas. I say misused since 9 out of 10 people I know (including MANY consultants) do not know how to do them properly. What are Pluses and Deltas? The easiest way to do plus

The Largest Room in the World

By Jon Miller - March 29th, 2007

What is the largest room in the world? I just heard this yesterday. Any guesses? Think about it. Or give a hint to other readers if you know the answer. I’m not telling.

Why So Much Confusion About Kanban?

By Jon Miller - March 28th, 2007

I had a very interesting conversation today with a friend who is a manager spearheading a Lean effort at a local facotry. His latest focus is on connecting the metal forming operations with the assembly operations using kanban. He obse

The Value of Figuring It Out for Yourself

By Jon Miller - March 27th, 2007

There is a curious mention of Nissan purchasing an American automobile factory before World War II and moving it to Japan in chapter 21 of Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management: Before the war Nissan had purchased an American facto

The Hardest of the 5S’s

By Ron Pereira - March 27th, 2007

I recently heard the best explanation of which of the 5 S’s is the toughest to master. Many say how hard sorting all the rubbish is… others say that sustain is without a doubt the hardest.Both of these common responses are

White Space Muda

By Jon Miller - March 26th, 2007

I heard a story about a Toyota employee. This was years ago when Toyota Motor Sales merged with Toyota Motor Company to form Toyota Motor Corporation. The employee from Motor Sales asked for paper to write a report. A woman in the offi

Explaining Cp and Cpk

By Ron Pereira - March 26th, 2007

When we speak about the capability of processes we often refer to a couple indices called Cp and Cpk. These two indices, used together, can tell us how capable our process is and whether or not we have a centering issue. For the math

The Art of Nemawashi

By Jon Miller - March 25th, 2007

Nemawashi is the building of support for a project through advance communication and consensus. The Japanese term nemawashi (根回し) comes from “to dig around the roots” in order to prepare a plant for transplant. Withou

The Cat is Back!

By Ron Pereira - March 25th, 2007

The Cat is back! My blogging pal KT Cat, over at The Scratching Post, has thrown out another hot sports opinion related to his (or her) negative experience with Lean Six Sigma. I must admit I like to read this feline’s stuff a

Twelve Reasons to Tell Customers About Your Lean Manufacturing Efforts

By Jon Miller - March 24th, 2007

Here is a follow up to reason #3 from of the post Here are 4.5 Signs that Your Lean May be L.A.M.E. from earlier this week. I could think of 12 reasons to tell customers about your Lean manufacturing efforts. 1. Customer behavior is th

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