Gemba Academy

Run is to Milk as Spider is to…

By Jon Miller - March 14th, 2010

A pair of questions about lean logistics over the past few weeks prompted this post. Santosh from India asked “what is the milk run method?” The Milk Run The milk run is an example of time-fixed, quantity variable replenish

What You May be Missing About 5S

By Jon Miller - March 11th, 2010

Paul left a couple of comments recently that caught my attention: HELP! My company has been “attempting” 5s for several years now,and have recently begun rolling it out once again after stopping it a few years back. My prob

Who will you hire?

By Ron Pereira - March 10th, 2010

Which do you feel is more important – hard work and hustle or brains and intelligence? In other words, if you had to choose between the following two people to run your family business… who would it be? Person 1: Average intell

Peter Drucker’s Impact on Lean Thinking

By Jon Miller - March 9th, 2010

The spring cleaning continues. My research library is an embarrassment of riches. Old notes and unfinished files hide in the shame of abundance. More the worse, no matter how much knowledge is shared its abundance only increases. Lucki

Lean Leaders, circa 2020

By Ron Pereira - March 7th, 2010

Guest Post by Michael Lombard of the Lean Builder Blog Have you seen any of Conan O’Brien’s “In the Year 2000” skits? They were funny when he started doing them way back in the 90’s, and were even funnier when he kept doing t

The Goal: A 2 Second Improvement Each Day

By Ron Pereira - March 4th, 2010

Another hat tip to Jon Miller for first posting this video of Paul Akers and the FastCap team practicing lean thinking. What you think of this process? Do you do something similar at your place of work?

Lean in Hospitals: Running Free vs. Coordinated Efforts

By Ron Pereira - March 3rd, 2010

Guest Post by Alicia C. Simmer of KHC There’s a choice to be made in how hospital leaders approach implementing lean: either let lean run free or force lean efforts to be coordinated. Running Free In the ‘running free’ approach,

Checking the Plan: Toyota Way 2001

By Jon Miller - March 2nd, 2010

Interesting articles of information continue to surface as the spring cleaning progresses at the Gemba office. Today’s find was a page from an interview with Fujio Cho. As the CEO of Toyota he had summarized the the desired ways

The Wisdom within the Experience

By Jon Miller - February 28th, 2010

We enjoy the freedom of speech and a free press. The accessibility of self-publishing and distribution of news and opinions due to blogs and internet journals has removed barriers to entry of the would-be journalist and columnists. As

The Lean US Senator Preaches the Gospel that is Lean on Fox News!

By Ron Pereira - February 26th, 2010

Hat tip to Jon Miller for first posting this video of Paul Akers preaching lean on Fox News. Yes, preaching lean on the most watched news station in the free world – Fox News. Check it out for yourself!!!

Senate Candidate Paul Akers Preaches Lean on Fox News

By Jon Miller - February 26th, 2010

Wow.

3 Life Lessons P90X Has Taught Me

By Ron Pereira - February 25th, 2010

I awake to the sound of my iPhone alarm clock ringing. It’s 5:15 AM. Are you kidding me? I lay there for about a minute. Then, my dog Lexi, who is 15 years old and losing her mind, comes to my side of the bed and begins her ritualist

Questions About A3 Problem Solving

By Jon Miller - February 25th, 2010

These days if you stand next to a Toyota building and listen closely you may hear the sound of many sheets of A3 sized paper being slowly turned into problem solving documents. There are a few big, complex problems that will surely res

The Rolling Tool Cart

By Ron Pereira - February 24th, 2010

I recently came across the video below and was intrigued by many aspects of this “rolling tool cart.” Here are some of the things I liked. It was made for around $50 according to this article. It’s on wheels It can be

Review of A Fine Line by Hartmut Esslinger

By Jon Miller - February 18th, 2010

On the recommendation of Matthew May, author, speaker and consultant to blue chip companies on innovation, lean and change, I read A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business. Written by Hartmut Esslinger, fou

5 Questions to Ask Before You Attempt to Implement Kanban

By Ron Pereira - February 18th, 2010

My first manufacturing experiences were with two different multi-billion dollar manufacturing companies who happened to run massive ERP systems meaning we had massive MRP systems running the shop floor. Sound familiar? Anyhow, as a y

Excerpts from An Interview with Taiichi Ohno, July 16, 1984

By Jon Miller - February 16th, 2010

One of the rewards of last week’s office kaizen activity at Gemba was the discover a copy of the 1984 interview with Taiichi Ohno. The original paper An Interview with Taiichi Ohno, July 16, 1984 is in Japanese and can be found o

The Ultimate Sacrifice: Serving Others

By Ron Pereira - February 16th, 2010

Note from Ron: This might be the most significant article I have ever written on this blog. Please read it all the way through as I need your help. Someone close to me and my family has recently re-deployed to Afghanistan… for the fi

Subsidiarity: A (Medieval) Lean Principle

By Ron Pereira - February 14th, 2010

Guest Post by Mark R. Hamel of Gemba Tales OK, there probably weren’t many lean practitioners in the Middle Ages, but Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century theologian, philosopher and all around brainiac did play a significant role in dev

Kaizen Goes Kaput? Not So Fast

By Jon Miller - February 13th, 2010

In recent weeks there have been many articles purporting to put the finger on the cause for Toyota’s quality troubles. Most of them are solution-jumping and not worthy of further exposure or response. I felt compelled to address

Gemba Research Office Layout Kaizen #11

By Jon Miller - February 11th, 2010

Over the past week we have been chipping away at some office kaizen at the Gemba Research office near Seattle. The major activities so far have included a layout change, some 5S and other small improvements. In the 6 years that we have

Gemba Tales: Lean stories, lessons and reflections

By Ron Pereira - February 9th, 2010

Over the last year several new lean and six sigma related blogs have appeared. I follow most of them. Some I like more than others… which is to be expected I guess. Anyhow, one of the newer blogs that has definitely caught

How to Make Time for Kaizen

By Jon Miller - February 9th, 2010

In the early stages of exploring kaizen and other formal continuous improvement systems people always ask, “Where will we find time for kaizen in addition to all of our other work?” Ideally kaizen should be something done n

5 Ways to Achieve Drew Brees Like Flow

By Ron Pereira - February 8th, 2010

As I watched the Super Bowl last night – where, I must admit, I was cheering for the Colts – I couldn’t help but marvel at how well Drew Brees was playing. To be sure, he was in the zone from the 2nd quarter through the end of th

5 Ways To Become a More Productive, Healthy, and Happy Person

By Ron Pereira - February 2nd, 2010

No matter what you do for a living one thing is certain – personal productivity matters. A lot. My wife stays home raising our 4 kids. She does her very best to be productive. I run a company, among other things. I do my very best to

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