Gemba Academy

Kanban: The Art of the Japanese Shop Sign

By Jon Miller - January 4th, 2012

The kanban has met many adventures on its way to becoming a popular tool for the limitation of tasks, projects and works in process. As superhero origin stories go, kanban has an interesting one. As long ago as 8th century Japan, guide

And with your spirit

By Ron Pereira - January 3rd, 2012

Roman Catholics around the word recently saw a huge change to the way Mass is celebrated. Specifically, there were several changes to the prayers we say. For example, prior to the change if you walked up to any Catholic and said, “Th

Leaning Into 2012

By Jon Miller - January 1st, 2012

Many years ago when I was first learning how to drive a car, my dear young aunt Ruth rode with me on an Illinois country road. She taught me the importance of accelerating when going into a curve. This was deeply counter-intuitive to m

The Best of LSS Academy – 2011 Edition

By Ron Pereira - December 29th, 2011

Well, friends, another year has come and gone. As always, I’d like to sincerely thank each and every one of you for taking the time to visit LSS Academy. We now have more than 16,000 subscribers which is simply mind blowing! I

2011 Management Carnival Annual Roundup

By Ron Pereira - December 26th, 2011

I’m excited to take part in this years Annual Management Carnival. I chose three of my favorite blogs and hope you enjoy the following articles as much as I did. Dan Pink Jim Collins on 3 ways to avoid demotivating people at work

An Easy Way to Make Your New Year’s Resolution Stick

By Ron Pereira - December 15th, 2011

Action is the foundational key to all success. -Pablo Picasso As 2011 comes to an end and we look forward to 2012… many of us will make new year’s resolutions. Some will commit to working out, some will commit to getting organi

Gemba Glossary: Value Stream Mapping

By Ron Pereira - December 8th, 2011

Here is the next video in our Gemba Glossary video series. This one focuses on Value Stream Mapping. If you missed any of our earlier Gemba Glossary videos please follow the links below. Gemba Glossary: 5S Gemba Glossary: The 7 Waste

The 5th Myth about the Respect for People Principle

By Jon Miller - December 7th, 2011

In an excellent blog post by Jamie Flinchbaugh today he introduces 4 myths about the principle of “Respect for People”, saying: But respect for people means different things to different people. To some it means avoiding la

All Bleeding Stops Eventually

By Ron Pereira - December 6th, 2011

Here’s a fact you may not have realized… all bleeding stops eventually. The key question, of course, is how long it takes to stop it. Do we quickly apply a band-aid and limit the damage to our body or do we sit around and wait unti

Kaizen and the Moisture Content of Fabrics

By Jon Miller - December 2nd, 2011

Fabric is one of the oldest technological artifacts of humanity. Water is essential to our survival and ubiquitous in our daily lives. So it is fitting that these two things come together in a metaphor about kaizen – changing thi

The Courage to Try

By Ron Pereira - December 1st, 2011

I was recently speaking with a Gemba Academy customer who’s looking to start a small lean consulting company. I’ll call this person Bob for the sake of this article. About Bob Bob explained that he doesn’t have a college degree b

Live Built in Quality Seminar in Denton, TX

By Ron Pereira - November 29th, 2011

Peterbilt Motors, Gemba Academy and Kaizen Institute are pleased to present a half-day live workshop on Monday December 5th 2011 on the subject of “Built-in Quality”, one of the two pillars of the Toyota Production System h

Live Seminar: Built-in Quality, Dallas – Dec. 5, 2011

By Jon Miller - November 28th, 2011

Peterbilt Motors, Gemba Academy and Kaizen Institute are pleased to present a half-day live workshop on Monday December 5th 2011 on the subject of “Built-in Quality”, one of the two pillars of the Toyota Production System h

Batch Answers to Reader Questions

By Jon Miller - November 23rd, 2011

The readers of Gemba Academy have expressed some questions and concerns regarding certain content in the blog articles. I’ll address some of the top concerns. Balancing Non-Value-Added Activities and Overprocessing in Know

Free Webinar "Continuous Improvement" Dec. 7, 2011

By Jon Miller - November 22nd, 2011

The Visual Management webinar with Kaizen Institute consultant Mike Wroblewski was immensely popular, and we are pleased to announce the next free webinar from Gemba Academy. Webinar: Putting the Continuous Back in Continuous Improveme

Management Improvement Carnival #149

By Jon Miller - November 20th, 2011

I’m honored once again to contribute to the Management Improvement Carnival series which John Hunter at the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog has kept going now to its 149th round. As I looked back over some of the blog pos

Kitchen Jidoka: Low Cost Automation Example

By Jon Miller - November 19th, 2011

There are not two but three definitions of the Japanese word jidoka, which students of kaizen and the Toyota Production System are likely to encounter. In fact there are two different jidokas. Coined by Taiichi Ohno as a play on words

Gemba Glossary: Value Stream

By Ron Pereira - November 10th, 2011

Here is the next video in our Gemba Glossary video series. This one focuses on the Value Stream. If you missed any of our earlier Gemba Glossary videos please follow the links below. Gemba Glossary: 5S Gemba Glossary: The 7 Wastes Gemb

Visual Management and Glass Walls

By Jon Miller - November 8th, 2011

Transparency is a key word these days, especially when it comes to the mishandling of vast sums of other people’s money by smart people who already have lots of it and should know better. Governments, institutional investors, cor

iSixSigma is Back!

By Ron Pereira - November 7th, 2011

Just got this message via email. This is GREAT news for the continuous improvement world. iSixSigma Founder Promises Rebirth of Lean Six Sigma Website Readers will again have access to the best Six Sigma, Lean and operational excel

Hoshin Planning – New Online Course from Gemba Academy

By Jon Miller - November 6th, 2011

The development team at Gemba Academy has been hard at work to bring you the latest online training course, Hoshin Planning. Currently the course includes 11 video modules, 1 quiz and 11 downloadable files. This brings the total number

The 7 Steps to Hoshin Kanri

By Ron Pereira - November 2nd, 2011

Gemba Academy recently added their 211th video to their constantly growing online and DVD based Lean Training System. This newest course is focused on Hoshin Planning, commonly referred to as Hoshin Kanri or Policy Deployment. Durin

How to Not Demotivate People

By Ron Pereira - October 31st, 2011

Here is a short, but excellent, video on how to not demotivate workers. The person speaking is Jim Collins, author of the bestseller Good to Great. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on whether you agree with everything Mr. Col

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Ignage

By Jon Miller - October 26th, 2011

Imagine my disappointment, upon hauling my gardening implements across town after a long and difficult season of tilling the soil, to be informed by the store proprietor that they could not in fact help with the repair of my hoes. It&#

Monitoring Agency Revises Date for Peak Lean

By Jon Miller - October 19th, 2011

October 19, 2011 Brussels (AP) One of the world’s leading efficiency trends monitoring agency, the Organization of Practitioners in Lean Enterprise Advancement and Sustainability (OPLEAS) issued a statement today revising the exp

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