Gemba Academy

Are You Ready For Lean?

By Ron Pereira - September 8th, 2008

I just skimmed through a short white paper that attempted to provide a checklist to help an organization decide if they were ready for lean. It was written by a person who works for a “human capital management solutions” company. Y

How to Measure Knowledge Worker Productivity, Part 3

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2008

How do we measure the productivity of knowledge workers? One can feel the creative juices ebbing away just thinking about this question. So we’ll skip Part 2 and go directly to Part 3. Why not measure knowledge worker productivit

Lean Tutorial: Production Capacity Template

By Ron Pereira - September 4th, 2008

To view a larger version of this video click here. Here is a free copy of the production capacity template I use in the video. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me or leave a comment below. Finally, if you like th

Lean Manufacturing in One Word

By Jon Miller - September 4th, 2008

Some of the most popular so-called lean manufacturing tools (some of which are actually systems, others which are disciplines, yet others which are in fact policies) can be reduced to one word: respect. This is staggering when you thin

The 7 Creativity Tools for When You are Stuck

By Jon Miller - September 2nd, 2008

There is a lot written about creativity. What is it? How can we develop it? Can it be measured and managed? An increasing amount of discussion in the business community is directed towards the topic of creativity. Many a blogger or spe

Step Away From the Dashboard!

By Ron Pereira - September 2nd, 2008

Here’s a question for you. Is the mission control center of your organization centered on a set of dashboards or balanced scorecards? In other words, when a crisis is about to hit (or has already hit) how do you react? Do you run to

Womack’s Lean versus Ohno’s TPS

By Ron Pereira - September 1st, 2008

Harish, a reader of LSS Academy, recently sent the following question via email. Dear Mr. Pereira, I have been reading your insightful posts on TPS. I also came across your post on VSM. I have a quick question, of all the books I have

Questions Raised by Voluntary Kaizen Policy at Toyota

By Jon Miller - August 31st, 2008

Doing some more research into the “voluntary” overtime issue as a management practice in Japan, we found that American fast food giant McDonald’s was recently hit with the same ruling as Toyota and must now pay their

How to Measure Knowledge Worker Productivity, Part 1

By Jon Miller - August 26th, 2008

A little while ago I heard the comment, “If I could figure that out I would be a millionaire,” in regard o the question, “How to measure knowledge worker productivity?” This doesn’t seem like such a challe

Small Teams Enable Kaizen and TPS

By Jon Miller - August 24th, 2008

Earlier this month Pete Abilla wrote about effective team sizes in his newly redesigned Shmula blog. The idea is that generally small teams are more effective because communication is essential to team success and beyond a certain size

Reading Henry Ford's My Life and Work

By Jon Miller - August 23rd, 2008

Finding my trip to Europe extended by almost a week, my stock of reading materials reduced to less than a day’s supply, a moment for panic. But thanks to the Project Gutenberg online book catalog making My Life and Work by Henry

5 Seemingly Innocent Questions You Never Want to Hear in a Lean Deployment

By Jon Miller - August 20th, 2008

These are 5 seemingly innocent questions which in fact you never want to hear in a lean deployment. If you do hear them this does not mean your efforts are doomed, only that the thinking behind what is lean and why we are doing it may

Rat Racing and Lean Thinking

By Ron Pereira - August 20th, 2008

The recent post about my credit card issues has created quite a conversation. One of the main themes being commented on is whether or not we, in America where we don’t have the chip like they do in the UK, should have to show an ID w

Walmart, You are Killing Me!

By Ron Pereira - August 18th, 2008

So check it out. A few months ago my wife noticed some suspicious charges on our Washington Mutual debit card at a Walmart in the Fort Worth area. After discussing it we realized someone had swiped our information and made two separate

Inspired by Phelps

By Ron Pereira - August 17th, 2008

Where were you when history was being made? I was pacing in front of my TV while holding my new born baby and screaming at the top of my lungs as Jason Lezak held off his Australian competitor in the 4x100m Medley Relay. Once it was fi

Toyota’s Mom & Pop Suppliers Feel CCC21 Squeeze

By Jon Miller - August 14th, 2008

Just on the heels of praising Toyota’s supply chain strategy while chiding Boeing’s I came across some articles from earlier this year that give quite a different picture of being a Toyota supplier. “Best in the World

How to Fold a T-Shirt in Two Motions

By Ron Pereira - August 14th, 2008

I recently wrote a post about laundry kaizen… I now have the knowledge needed to take things to the next level. Check it out! Question for Jon Miller: Can you please help us translate a little Japanese? At least I think it’

Do you Use VSM Software?

By Ron Pereira - August 13th, 2008

There are at least two schools of thought related to the use of software when drawing value stream maps. Some lean purists claim the use of value stream mapping software is heretical while others have no problem with it. My Opinion My

The Wedge is the Simplest of Tools

By Jon Miller - August 12th, 2008

The wedge is the simplest of tools. A wedge has a flat end and a pointy end. A wedge converts a blunt, general force into a sharp, narrowly focused force. A wedge is very effective at separating things, breaking things apart or dividin

The Hard Sell for Cells

By Jon Miller - August 10th, 2008

On a few occasions lately I’ve had to make the hard sell for cells. Typically when teaching people how to implement TPS we show more than tell. The learning by doing helps people take ownership of the decision to make a significa

Oh Noes! Boeing Haz Supply Chain Woes?

By Jon Miller - August 8th, 2008

Laughter is good for us, even though sometimes we laugh because of pathos more than humor. So it is with news that Lack of Seats, Galleys Delays Boeing, Airbus from today’s Wall Street Journal. Airbus and Boeing Co. have both str

Learning from Things that Didn’t Work

By Jon Miller - August 5th, 2008

One of the common objections we hear to doing kaizen is that “We’ve tried it before and it didn’t work,” as if past failures were ever a reason for not trying again. Experience is a good teacher only if we step

Must Read Article about Top Toyota Engineer

By Ron Pereira - August 5th, 2008

If you don’t already read Jon Miller’s excellent blog you’ll want to pay a visit and read his most recent article “Toyota’s Top Engineer on How to Develop Thinking People.” The original article Jon r

Toyota’s Top Engineer on How to Develop Thinking People

By Jon Miller - August 4th, 2008

The August 4, 2008 Nikkei Business Online article titled Top Engineer Explains How Toyota Develops People (技術最高職が語る「トヨタはこう人を育てる」). The article is an interview with Nanpachi Hayashi, Toyota̵

Laundry Kaizen

By Ron Pereira - August 2nd, 2008

With my wife trying to focus on our newest family member I decided to do the laundry this past week. It’s been awhile since I’ve done the laundry and some things have definitely changed. Before Kaizen Before, what I’m calling

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