Gemba Academy

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 28: Wits Don’t Work Until You Feel the Squeeze

By Jon Miller - July 17th, 2006

“When I’m sitting in the board room I have no idea what’s happening on the gemba.” Taiichi Ohno begins, and proceeds to tell the story of what would happen when he was sitting in another office, Production Control. When his eye

Kaizen Secrets of the Toyota Mind

By Jon Miller - July 16th, 2006

There have been many books on the bestseller list with variations on the theme of “how to become a millionaire”. A fellow named T. Harv Eker rolled through Seattle a few years ago and gave a free seminar on the subject. It seemed l

Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei, Part 3: The Top 8 Pearls of Wisdom on Kaizen

By Jon Miller - July 13th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno loved wordplay. He would take a few choice Japanese words and pack in as much kaizen wisdom as he could. He chose his words carefully, even though in much of his writing he was informal and direct, and not highly articulat

Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei, Part 2: Foreword from the First Textbook on the Toyota Production System

By Jon Miller - July 12th, 2006

This is an image of the first textbook ever written on the Toyota Production System. The title reads Toyota Style Production System – The Toyota Method. The Toyota Education Department published this in January 1973. Taiichi Ohno wr

Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei, Part 1: “I Never Said There Were 7 Types of Waste”

By Jon Miller - July 10th, 2006

One has to be careful these days when making statements about the origins of TPS and check the facts, or else be pinned to the mat for a count of three by the investigative tag-team of Art Smalley and Isao Kato. So I’ll confess t

Spending Money to Hinder Leadership

By Jon Miller - July 7th, 2006

I recently went to Japan with a group of directors from an aerospace company to see Toyota and other leaders of Lean. One of the results of the trip was that the director or engineering really saw the waste walls cause in the office an

How Toyota Used IT to Cut New Product Development Time in Half

By Jon Miller - July 5th, 2006

This is a follow up to a previous post on How Toyota Uses Information Technology (IT) for Kaizen based on an interview with Toyota CIO Amano in the Nikkei BP magazine. This one is titled The Role of the CIO is to Change the Way We Work

Every Day is a Good Day for Daily Kaizen in Lean Healthcare

By Jon Miller - July 3rd, 2006

Today is a good day for Daily Kaizen! The intranet blog for the Lean healthcare team at Group Health Cooperative is now open to the public. The authors are Lee Fried, internal consultant who is spearheading the Lean effortsat Group Hea

No One Does Lean Like the Japanese

By Jon Miller - July 1st, 2006

No one does Lean like the Japanese. Or at least that’s the title of an article in the July 10, 2006 BusinessWeek. It’s good to see Lean production being featured in mainstream business magazines like this even if it’s

Gemba Keiei Chapter 27: We Can Still Do a Lot More Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 30th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno starts the chapter with the surprising statement “We have done a lot of rationalization on the production floor and we are near the limit. It’s becoming common sense that administrative processes still need a lot of ra

The Top 10 Reasons to Start Lean Office and Lean Manufacturing at the Same Time

By Jon Miller - June 27th, 2006

Most manufacturing organizations start their Lean journey on the factory floor first. Many soon recognize that meaningful, lasting improvement is only possible if Lean principles are also applied to administrative processes that suppor

Kaizen Song: I Stop the Line

By Jon Miller - June 26th, 2006

It’s a very busy week, no time to blog today. So I’ll post another one of the kaizen songs I wrote back in the days when I had a lot more time on my hands. Please enjoy this musical interlude. I Stop the Line (To Johnny Cas

Credit Suisse Does Gemba Research

By Jon Miller - June 25th, 2006

A June 2006 article in Fast Company magazine asks “Talk to Our Customers? Are You Crazy?” The approach Credit Suisse is taking to understand the problems with their products and processes is basically research by going to t

Gemba Keiei Chapter 26: There Are No Supervisors at the Administrative Gemba

By Jon Miller - June 22nd, 2006

“Administrative work is done at the gemba just the same as the production gemba where we make things. The office is the administrative gemba.” Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter. Gemba is a Japanese word meaning “actual place”. In

How Toyota Uses Information Technology (IT) for Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 21st, 2006

There is a staggering amount of good material being printed these days in the Japanese press about kaizen, the Toyota Production System and issues of manufacturing and business competitiveness. I just wish I had more time to read the m

Trying Out Herman Miller’s New Cubicle: Not for the Lean Office

By Jon Miller - June 20th, 2006

Herman Miller is credited for introducing the original cubicle. Instead of recognizing poor design and listening to the voice of customer, they have designed a better cube or according to designer Douglas Ball “an environment tha

Doing More with Less in the Lean Office

By Jon Miller - June 19th, 2006

“An increasing number of local companies are shrinking their employees’ work spaces” begins an article in the Puget Sound Business Journal titled Offices Getting Smaller. Well known firms in our neighborhood including

Do Heijunka with Your Kaizen Efforts

By Jon Miller - June 18th, 2006

Last week we performed an assessment at a tier one automobile manufacturer. This company has done some Lean manufacturing activities. Due to a large number of new product launches at the moment, kaizen activity appeared to us to be at

Toyota Feels the Heat from Hyundai

By Jon Miller - June 17th, 2006

The Autoblog is always good for some emotional point-counterpoint when it comes to the fates and doings of the automobile manufacturers in the United States. Today’s post titled Toyota to suppliers: don’t sell to Hyundai pr

Gemba Keiei Chapter 25: Work is a Game of Wits with Subordinates

By Jon Miller - June 16th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter “In order to lead a large number of people in work, you have to be tough. But I think this is basically not a matter of giving orders or instructions, but a game of wits with subordinates.” Ohno says

The Lean Ranger in: The Workshop of the World, Part II

By Jon Miller - June 15th, 2006

After a short layover at Gemba’s Shanghai office, Yang Kai and I are off to Guangzhou. Since it’s a domestic flight, the Security level is a little lower, but there are still lots of uniforms standing around. I spot an ATM in the a

NHS Confederation Releases “Lean Thinking for the NHS”

By Jon Miller - June 14th, 2006

The United Kingdom has taken an important step in leading the Lean healthcare movement today with the publication of Lean Thinking for the NHS by the NHS Confederation (National Health Service) based on studies done by the Lean Enterpr

Sell Complacency, Buy Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 13th, 2006

On June 12, 2006 Minyanville News & Views commentary money manager Ryan Krueger gave the advice “sell complacency, buy kaizen”. He sees the U.S. as complacent, giving evidence for the eroding dominance as the number on

Lean Thinking & Google’s 9 Notions of Innovation

By Jon Miller - June 12th, 2006

I’ve written from time to time about the relationship between kaizen, Lean process and innovation in this blog. Innovation is the hot thing at the moment as the United States struggles to cope with what appears to be the increasing i

Kaizen Song: Cycle Times They Are A-Changin’

By Jon Miller - June 10th, 2006

Doing some 5S with computer files this weekend I came across a folder of “kaizen songs” we had made for fun a few years ago. The melodies are well-known folk, rock or country tunes. This one is called Cycle Times They Are A

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