Gemba Academy

Continuous Improvement Storyboards

By Jon Miller - October 4th, 2021

Lean management has a positive bias for making things visible. This ranges from large and abstract things like performance, progress toward strategic goals, and problem-solving projects down to smaller concrete things like the correct

The Power of Neutral Thinking

By Ron Pereira - October 1st, 2021

“It’s okay to have emotions… just don’t be emotional.” – Russell Wilson One of the great joys of my life has been the ability to coach many of my children’s youth sports teams. It all started b

The Current State of Grasping the Current Condition

By Jon Miller - September 27th, 2021

During a conversation the other day with my friend and colleague Ron Pereira, he mentioned an interesting point. This was in regards to the current state of the continuous improvement community’s understanding of the term current

Visual Management of Our Readiness

By Jon Miller - September 20th, 2021

One of the most accessible and basic continuous improvement tools is a workplace organization and visualization practice known as 5S. It has roots that go back perhaps 100 years. The 5S as we know it today seems to have roots in the CA

How Important Is Physical Presence on the Gemba?

By Jon Miller - September 13th, 2021

Nearly thirty years ago when I first ventured into the field of kaizen, continuous improvement, and what’s come to be known as lean management, there was no commercial internet. This meant that if you wanted to talk to someone, y

The Value of Friction and Inefficiency

By Kevin Meyer - September 10th, 2021

Our professional lives are generally consumed by trying to make our processes more efficient to reduce waste and help increase the value we deliver to our customers. Our personal lives are similarly consumed by trying to find time on

Blog Writing Workflow and Visual Management

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2021

Here’s an update on my ongoing experiment in making the process of publishing forty-plus blog articles per year easier, more fun, and defect-free. It’s going well. I set a task for myself every Friday to look at the WIP wit

How to Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement

By Ron Pereira - September 3rd, 2021

This article was written by John Knotts. John recently joined the Gemba Academy team as a Senior Coach of Lean and Six Sigma. A culture of continuous improvement provides any company a significant advantage in the marketplace. But do

GA 387 | The Anatomy of a Lean Leader with Rick Foreman

By Jessica Bush - September 2nd, 2021

This week’s guest is Rick Foreman. Rick shared a powerful anecdote and explained what he’s been up to. Ron and Rick also broke down the ten essential traits of a lean leader. An MP3 audio version of this episode is availa

Coaching Problem Solvers at Toyota

By Jon Miller - August 30th, 2021

It’s widely accepted these days that sustaining excellence long term requires customer focus and continuous improvement. Organizations increasingly realize that people capable of thinking and solving problems are their greatest a

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