Gemba Academy Blog

Blog Archive

Why Some Lean Six Sigma Programs Fail – Part 1

By Ron Pereira - February 11th, 2007

If you have not read the Harvard Business Review on Change I highly recommend it. It is a series of case studies focused on change management. One of the case studies is called, “Successful Change Programs Begin with Results” by Ro

Waiting

By Ron Pereira - February 10th, 2007

If you pick up any book about Lean or attend a Lean training course you will likely hear how overproduction is the mother of all wastes. OK, in the truest sense it probably is… especially for those that manufacture any type of produc

Standard Work

How to Calculate Standard Work in Process (SWIP) Quantity

By Jon Miller - February 8th, 2007

Standard Work is one of the more misunderstood concepts in Lean manufacturing. It is neither standardization nor work standards. You can learn more about Standard Work by looking at the following blog posts: Reflections on Standard Wor

Lean Lexicon

By Ron Pereira - February 8th, 2007

I was fortunate enough to receive training from Gemba Research which was excellent and I highly recommend them, as I have stated before. But I would be doing the nice people over at Lean Enterprise Institute an injustice if I didn’t

Stop the Finger Pointing!

By Ron Pereira - February 7th, 2007

I despise, from the deepest pit of my being, the blame game that occurs within so many companies that manufacture products – any product. This problem is sadly amplified in western companies. It typically goes something like this, �

The Toyota Way is Doing Obvious Things

By Jon Miller - February 6th, 2007

…but doing them exceptionally well. This was a comment from an economist on a TV news program in Japan I heard some while ago, that seems to have become common knowledge in Japanese business consciousness. This idea of the Toyota

Standard Work

By Ron Pereira - February 6th, 2007

Since the mission of this blog is to offer ideas for how to align the strengths of both Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma I wanted discuss a topic I firmly believe all continuous improvement practitioners should practice. This topic is

We Made Someone at Toyota Headquarters Unhappy

By Jon Miller - February 5th, 2007

We teach the Toyota system. We want to teach it to as many people as want to learn about it. As a consequence we think we provide Toyota with good PR. It seems not everyone at Toyota headquarters agrees. Here is an e-mail we received l

Electronic Kanban

By Ron Pereira - February 3rd, 2007

Here is a question for all the Lean gurus out there. Is “Electronic Kanban” an oxymoron? I have my own opinion but would like to hear yours.

How to Motivate People to Change, Part 3

By Jon Miller - February 1st, 2007

How do you motivate the people on the trailing edge of the bell curve? The so-called “anchor draggers” or CAVE people tend to attract the most attention or concern during the process of change. I wish we had time to bring e

Be SMART!

By Ron Pereira - February 1st, 2007

I am often asked why some projects fail to get results or even get completed. This is a difficult question with many possible answers. But if I were forced to narrow it done the ever famous “you must have a good champion” would be

How to Motivate People to Change, Part 2

By Jon Miller - January 31st, 2007

How to motivate people to change? A day later and I still don’t know, but Taiichi Ohno’s “game of wits” comes to mind (see chapter 25 of Workplace Management). A game is something that is fun. Most of us are mot

Control Charts – Part 3

By Ron Pereira - January 31st, 2007

Hello friends! This is the 3rd and final installment of all you wanted to know about control charts but were afraid to ask. In part 1 of the series we talked about the history and purpose of control charts. In part 2 we discussed three

How to Motivate People to Change, Part 1

By Jon Miller - January 30th, 2007

How to motivate people to change? That question was asked recently. It’s a good question and one that we should not assume we know the answer to. It is not a question that should be addressed in your organizations by professional

Control Charts – Part 2

By Ron Pereira - January 30th, 2007

  Welcome back. This is part 2 of the 3 part series on control charts. As promised we will discuss the p, c, and u charts this evening. These control charts are used when we are dealing with attribute data, which is sometimes refe

Control Charts – Part 1

By Ron Pereira - January 29th, 2007

The wife is off to her monthly book club, the kids are in bed, and the dogs are doing what they excel at – absolutely nothing. So I thought I would settle in for a bit and begin the first of a 3 part series on one of my favorite

Toyota Production System Implementation at Japan Post, Year 4

By Jon Miller - January 29th, 2007

Here is an update to the story of Toyota instructors teaching TPS to the Japan Post and a partial answer to the question Toyota Botches Lean Implementation at Japan Post? posted earlier in this blog. The following is a summary from the

Free Scholarship at the Lean Six Sigma Academy

By Jon Miller - January 28th, 2007

My friend Ron Pereira started a blog two weeks ago called Lean Six Sigma Academy. The articles so far have been an interesting mix of topics such as Process Mapping – Lean or Six Sigma Tool?, CAVE People, Lean or Six Sigma?, Six

Evolution of Dance

By Ron Pereira - January 27th, 2007

This has nothing to do with Lean or Six Sigma but is perhaps the funniest 6 minutes you will ever experience! If you prefer to watch a Lean video scroll down and watch the Toyota video. But not even Toyota can compete with this guy! En

The Toyota Way

By Ron Pereira - January 27th, 2007

The Toyota Way

The Forgotten M’s

By Ron Pereira - January 26th, 2007

Those familiar with lean manufacturing have likely heard the word muda many times. Muda is the Japanese word for waste and is the enemy of us all whether we know it or not. Strangely enough muda is not the only enemy of a lean system.

Kaizen of the Month at Gemba, December 2006

By Jon Miller - January 26th, 2007

By Marcie MacRae Going into the holidays and having the majority of the staff out of the office can be a good time to implement a big kaizen in the office. This year while the staff was on winter holidays, the admin team and two consul

CAVE People

By Ron Pereira - January 24th, 2007

Most of us have encountered individuals I call CAVE people. These people are: Citizens Against Virtually Everything You can likely name one or two CAVE people right away. In my experience there is no easy way to deal with them. They ar

Lean Manufacturing: A Five-Year Fix?

By Jon Miller - January 24th, 2007

On the way to the gemba this morning I heard the NPR report on American suit manufacturer Joseph Abboud on the rental car radio. Here is the transcript on the NPR website, titled Suit Maker Goes ‘Lean’ to Keep Jobs in U.S.

ideas-domino

Japan Kaikaku Experience Field Report, January 2007

By Jon Miller - January 22nd, 2007

Recap of Our Recent Japan Kaikaku Experience-By Brad Schmidt Toyota’s Innovation: Toyota showcased an impressive update. They’ve introduced full kitting on specific sections of their assembly line. Kit carts follow the car

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