Gemba Academy

Some Thoughts on Future State Value Stream Mapping

By Jon Miller - June 8th, 2006

To paraphrase a military expression “The most dangerous thing in a combat zone is an officer with a map” in Lean manufacturing terms: “The most dangerous thing on the shop floor is a manager with a value steam map.” I have noth

Gemba Keiei Chapter 24: Fight the Robot Fad

By Jon Miller - June 7th, 2006

“We only started talking about ‘reduced volume production’ after the 1973 oil shock. Prior to that we could sell everything we made so cost reduction for mass production was easier.” Ohno goes on to say that although many other

Lean Manufacturing Mantras

By Jon Miller - June 6th, 2006

One of my favorite Lean manufacturing moments was when a group of highly intelligent and committed Lean leaders from an American industrial giant that we took to Japan realized that the excellent company we were visiting had no idea wh

Giving Lean Healthcare a Bad Name

By Jon Miller - June 5th, 2006

We’re giving Lean healthcare a bad name in Jean’s world. Jean is a nurse at a hospital where Lean healthcare practices based on the Toyota Production System are being implemented. At Jean’s hospital, it sounds like they a

Kaizen Consultant Asks: “Why is this Here?”

By Jon Miller - June 2nd, 2006

Last month I joined two kaizen consultants from our team to do an opportunity assessment at a tier one automotive company. It’s good to see kaizen and Lean manufacturing efforts increasing at automotive factories in the United St

Kaizen the Design, Recall the Part

By Jon Miller - May 31st, 2006

A Washington Street Journal article on May 31, 2006 reports that once again, Toyota Recalls Some Prius Cars. That’s some 170,000 Prius vehicles. If you include the other models it’s nearly a million cars recalled for parts

Gemba Keiei Chapter 23: Producing at the Lowest Possible Cost

By Jon Miller - May 30th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno starts the chapter by telling the story of when the President of Toyota, Mr. Ishida, was summoned to the National Diet and scolded by politicians for building passenger cars that were too expensive. Back then even the head

Before Kaizen, Ask “If You Had Enough, Would You Know?”

By Jon Miller - May 29th, 2006

I visited the 35th annual Seattle Folklife Festival yesterday, enjoying a couple of hours with my family before diving into a very busy couple of weeks. There was great music, passable weather and more hippies than you can shake a stic

Construction Executives Visit Toyota, Learn Kaizen

By Jon Miller - May 25th, 2006

From time to time we post articles about our Lean manufacturing benchmarking trips and travelogues of doing kaizen in interesting places around the world. Today I want to point you to the Reforming Project Management blog and an articl

The Lean Office & The Typewriter of the Future

By Jon Miller - May 24th, 2006

I took typing classes before it was called “keyboarding”. The first manual typewriter I used was a fascinating and alien collection of metal eyes and teeth, a beautiful piece of industrial design like this one. The march of progres

Gemba Keiei Chapter 22: Shut the Machines Off!

By Jon Miller - May 23rd, 2006

Taiichi Ohno starts by explaining the difference between an automatic loom “working” and “moving” or “running”. Working implies that jidoka prevents it from making defects. A machine “running” and producing defects is n

Hoshin Kanri Lesson: No Plan Goes According to Plan

By Jon Miller - May 19th, 2006

Having completed the second day of the Hoshin Kanri (Policy Management) session with LEI, I can say that I learned that no plan goes according to plan. Our instructor Pascal Dennis used this phrase several times over two days to drive

Going Back to School for Hoshin Kanri

By Jon Miller - May 18th, 2006

I’ve taught Hoshin Kanri half a dozen times to clients but I struggle to put it into practice at Gemba. You won’t be interested in hearing my excuses, and it’s my fault that we’ve had Hoshin Kanri annual plans i

Lean Manufacturing in the Construction Industry

By Jon Miller - May 17th, 2006

Eric Sander Senior Operations Consultant I have recently had the pleasure of working with a young business owner who has discovered the potential of Lean Principles in an industry very much in need of improvement, the building trades.

Good News! Hospitals are Healing Themselves through Kaizen

By Jon Miller - May 16th, 2006

“All the things wrong with hospitals can be fixed.” Narrator Lloyd Dobyns tells us at the beginning of the video program Good News…How Hospitals Heal Themselves In the video program hospital administrators and clinicians tell

Gemba Keiei Chapter 21: Rationalization is Doing What is Rational

By Jon Miller - May 15th, 2006

The title of this chapter is somewhat awkward. By another translation you could read it as “Improvement means doing what is rational” or “Kaizen means following reason”. But here Taiichi Ohno is engaging in a bi

Five Practical Ways to Stay on the Sunny Side of Lean

By Jon Miller - May 12th, 2006

It’s not easy to read so much about the dark side of Lean. I’ve received e-mails this week from readers who are upset that I would post attacks on Lean manufacturing and kaizen. It’s no fun to learn terrible things about your fav

Interview with Darius Mehri, Author of “Notes from Toyota-land”

By Jon Miller - May 11th, 2006

Today we continue exploring the dark side of Lean as we interview Darius Mehri, author of Notes from Toyota-land. Darius is an American who spent three years working as an engineer in Japan at a Toyota group company. He changed the nam

Juxtaposition of an efficient assembly line and stressed workers

Lean Production Does Not Respect People

By Jon Miller - May 10th, 2006

Many of those exposing the dark side of Lean production take aim at “Lean production” as defined in the book The Machine that Changed the World. This book compares the Japanese and U.S. automotive industries and identifies best pra

Kanban cards in a flow with people represented on the cards

Human Kanban

By Jon Miller - May 9th, 2006

Kanban is a material and information flow management tool. They are typically cards attached to containers of parts. The cards contain information about the parts and these cards are reused, traveling with parts. Kanban are used to con

War, Oil and Lean Production

By Jon Miller - May 8th, 2006

Each day this week we will examine aspects of The Dark Side of Lean. Today’s theme is “War, Oil and Lean Production” – admittedly an extreme Left perspective based on Marxist thought and the examination of a murder-suicide at a

From the Mechanical Side to the Dark Side of Lean…

By Jon Miller - May 5th, 2006

This week started with an article about the top 5 reasons for using 3P. Requests from readers took us deeper into SMED and jidoka – all aspects of Lean manufacturing and machines. Without planning it the theme for the week was the �

The 5 Steps to Building Jidoka Equipment

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2006

Delving deeper into themes related to the Production Preparation Process (3P) today I’ll explain what is meant by the “5 Steps of Jidoka” mentioned number sixteen of the 16 Catch Phrases of 3P. About Jidoka First some background

Gemba Keiei Chapter 20: What I Learned About Forging Changeover from Toyota do Brasil

By Jon Miller - May 3rd, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by saying “In order to achieve Just in Time you need to solve your changeover problems and reduce lot sizes. Forging processes are the most difficult.” This chapter should really be titled “Toyota

Designing Processes to Fit Lean Manufacturing with the 16 Catch Phrases of 3P

By Jon Miller - May 2nd, 2006

The 16 Catch Phrases of 3P are used as guidelines for designing processes according to Lean manufacturing principles of JIT (Takt, Flow, Pull) and Jidoka. As a result of a successful 3P workshop following the 16 Catch Phrases the equip

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