Gemba Academy

An Introduction to Kaizen

By Jon Miller - May 13th, 2019

Kaizen (改善) is a Japanese word meaning “improvement”. The symbol kai means to change, to renew, to correct something that is wrong, and zen means “good” – there is no relation to Zen Buddhism. The w

Businessman with vampire fangs in the office

The Problem of Profit as a Purpose

By Kevin Meyer - May 10th, 2019

Just yesterday the Harvard Business Review presented an article by a London Business School professor suggesting that companies don’t always need a purpose beyond profit. I had to take a walk on the beach to get my blood pressure

The Pursuit of True Pull

By Jon Miller - May 6th, 2019

A couple of weeks ago I spent the day with Jeff Kaas at his company Kaas Tailored. We discussed their approach to hoshin kanri, gemba walks, visual management, creating flow in a high-mix low-volume environment, and how they are adapti

Ask These 4 Questions During Your Next Coaching Call

By Ron Pereira - May 3rd, 2019

A critical component of our Green Belt and Black Belt certification program are weekly coaching calls. We’ve learned that staying in close contact with our candidates is vital to their success. We’ve also learned that fou

Akio Toyoda Gets Real

By Jon Miller - April 29th, 2019

The New Year’s message to Toyota employees on January 8, 2019 by CEO Akio Toyoda’s was that times are changing. The automotive industry is in a once-in-a-century technological revolution. Products will need CASE: Connectiv

How to Balance Broad Deployment of Lean Tools with Development of Depth of Capability

By Jon Miller - April 22nd, 2019

During his keynote speech at KataCon 5, Jeff Liker shared a question that he is grappling with lately; how to balance the broad deployment of Lean tools with the development of depth of capability of people? By his own admission, his c

Resources for Personal Lean Leadership

By Kevin Meyer - April 18th, 2019

Lean, and continuous improvement in general, isn’t just for the professional world. The tools and concepts can also be used to clean your garage (5S), organize your pantry (kanban), set direction (hoshin), or reduce the time it takes

Harnessing Deliberate Reflection to Create Personal Improvement

By Kevin Meyer - April 12th, 2019

My favorite part of last week’s podcast with James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, was the last five minutes when he talked about a potential downside of good habits. When we decide to improve, and create a new practice with th

Building Lean Habits, in a Lean Way

By Jon Miller - April 8th, 2019

Our podcast with Atomic Habits author James Clear posed some interesting questions that we can ask ourselves when striving to practice and become Lean. Chiefly among them is, “Who is the type of person who could be Lean?”

Breaking Bad Habits is Hard to Do

By Ron Pereira - April 5th, 2019

I recently sat down with James Clear to discuss his must read book Atomic Habits. We released the full interview yesterday through the podcast so please give it a listen. I feel like it turned out more like a short audiobook than a p

Breaking the Weak Link in the Value Chain

By Jon Miller - April 1st, 2019

In the lean way of thinking, the value we deliver to the customer increases in proportion to effort when we connect processes and keep the activities moving along smoothly. Instead, Harvard Business School professor Thales Teixeira wri

Avoiding the Productivity Paradox

By Jon Miller - March 25th, 2019

Lean thinking and practice have the potential to improve outcomes in healthcare, software development teams, government services, business performance and even individual growth and well-being. For something that is so powerful and eff

What’s the Follow Up Plan?

By Steve Kane - March 22nd, 2019

Covey said it best: “Begin with the end in mind.” The adoption of a lean practice sometimes starts with a problem to solve. Other times it starts with a new tool (“To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail&#

Introducing the Value Stream Management Resources Page

By Jon Miller - March 20th, 2019

When Mike Rother and John Shook wrote the book Learning to See, it represented a major step forward in the awareness among practitioners in the lean community. Prior to the activity of Value Steam Mapping, it was more challenging for

Lean Literacy

By Jon Miller - March 18th, 2019

Michael Ballé wrote a thoughtful reply to the question of what should be included in an MBA-level course to teach Lean concepts. It is a tough question because as Michael points out, there are some deep differences that must be recon

What Meetings Reveal About a Leader’s Beliefs

By Jon Miller - March 11th, 2019

One of the simplest and most impactful things an organization can do in the pursuit of excellence is to reform how they hold meetings. And yet this is one of the most challenging changes. A recent conversation reminded me of this. The

The Most Important Lesson I’ve Learned the Past 20 Years

By Ron Pereira - March 8th, 2019

My kids range in age from 3 to 16. And, as long time Gemba Academy followers may know, I have quite a few kids in between these two. And while my wife and I have learned a lot about parenting over the years we’re still learning.

Amazon’s New Waste Reduction Strategy: Batching

By Jon Miller - March 4th, 2019

Amazon is trying something new in an effort to reduce packaging materials as well as the amount of fuel burned by making fewer deliveries. According to the article Amazon’s new waste reduction strategy: deliver only once a week, whe

The Limits of Learning From Failure

By Kevin Meyer - March 1st, 2019

Experienced leaders know that failure is not necessarily a negative, and can lead to both individual and organizational learning. We try to embrace failure and create a culture where appropriate failure is accepted as long as it̵

What is the Right Amount of Slack?

By Jon Miller - February 25th, 2019

The Kraft Heinz company reported poor financial performance this past week, causing its stock price to dive more than 20%. It has lost nearly half of its value over the past year. A Wall Street Journal article said of Kraft’s man

Vision, Values, and Principles

By Steve Kane - February 20th, 2019

Labor and work environments have continually changed since the dawn of employment. These topics are like just about any other aspect of the human experience in that they have changed more rapidly over the past century than any other pe

Words of Taiichi Ohno: Build a System that Loses Money

By Jon Miller - February 18th, 2019

At one level, a lean transformation means improving existing systems and building new systems where required. People and organizations cannot avoid systems. We all work within systems, be they regulatory, financial, logistical, politic

Not All Costs Exist To Be Reduced

By Jon Miller - February 11th, 2019

Taiichi Ohno declared, “Costs don’t exist to be calculated, costs exist to be reduced.” His point was that traditional accounting can fool us into justifying inefficient operations, building up inventory or acquiring

Teaching Thinking

By Kevin Meyer - February 8th, 2019

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few. – Shunryu Suzuki A couple of recent Harvard Business Review articles have discussed how higher education isn’t preparing g

The Life-Affirming Science of Tidying Up

By Jon Miller - February 4th, 2019

When book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was published a few years ago, I read it with interest. It describes an unintentional application of 2S principles in the home (sort & straightening / set in order). Author and consu

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