Gemba Academy

Why Flow Counter Clockwise?

By Ron Pereira - September 30th, 2007

When designing a u-shaped cell it is often recommened that material flow in a counter clockwise direction. Why is this? It’s about the right hand Research shows that most people are right handed. I have heard that as many as 85%

Liquor Stores and Churches

By Ron Pereira - September 27th, 2007

They say there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Here’s an example of why this is sadly true in many cases. It’s been proven that there is a strong correlation between the number of churches and liquor stores in a commun

Top 10 Success Factors for 5S

By Jon Miller - September 27th, 2007

Are you struggling with sustaining your 5S efforts as part of a Lean implementation? You’re not alone. We conducted a poll during a Lean facilitator training class and found that many experience common barriers and struggles in m

11 Ways to Improve Customer Service

By Jon Miller - September 26th, 2007

Marcie MacRae posted an excellent article about customer service titled 10 ways to improve customer service based on her deep experience in that area and the 10 Commandments of Kaizen, which are rephrased here: 1. Let go of your fixed

The Bridge Builder

By Ron Pereira - September 25th, 2007

I recently heard this poem. While I am not a big poem kind of fellow I must admit this one resonated with me. It summarizes why I love what I do… which is to find better ways to do things better. Put another way my goal in

Something Lacking in the TPS House

By Jon Miller - September 24th, 2007

People point out from time to time that there is something lacking in the TPS house used to explain the Toyota Production System. Typically it is represented with the two pillars of just in time and jidoka, with a foundation of kaizen,

A New Lean Metric: ROI LT

By Ron Pereira - September 23rd, 2007

When teaching value stream mapping one of the hardest metrics for people to grasp is production lead time (PLT) which is also commonly referred to as throughput time. Here is a quick summary of how PLT works. Say there are 3 proces

Gary Convis on the Role of Management in Lean Manufacturing

By Jon Miller - September 23rd, 2007

Gary Convis is the Chairman of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky and also serves in Officer roles for Toyota’s North American holding companies. Gary Convis helped start up NUMMI, and he was the first American President of a ve

We Live in a Pull Universe

By Jon Miller - September 21st, 2007

Lean manufacturing works, and this has been proven through decades of practice. Yet decades are admittedly not much when measured against geologic time. Some aspects of TPS such building in quality, getting ideas from people who actual

This Too is a Kanban

By Jon Miller - September 20th, 2007

The orthodox description of a kanban is a rectangular card in a plastic sleeve used to reorder materials from a supplier or an upstream process, or a triangular metal plate used to signal production for a process that requires changeov

Where is Ron?

By Ron Pereira - September 20th, 2007

Hello from London, England. I wanted to drop a line and apologize for my lack of blogging action! I have been extremely busy as of late and thus my blogging has taken a bit of a hit. I typically post my blogs in the evenings but

How the Skill Matrix Enables Downstream Pull

By Jon Miller - September 19th, 2007

Downstream pull, one piece at a time, works not only for inventory control by signaling production or material movement, but also for maintaining smooth balance and flow of work done by people. This can be manual factory work such as a

Push, Pull, Paper Clips & Problem Solving

By Jon Miller - September 18th, 2007

The Toyota Production System, or what we call sometimes call Lean management, is simply the practice of planning, trying out your plan, reflecting (hansei) on what worked and what did not work and making adjustments through problem sol

Keep Your Kanban Cards Close to Your Genbutsu

By Jon Miller - September 17th, 2007

The primary function of a kanban card is to provide information about production instructions. Kanban cards contain information about where to produce and transport a particular product, when and in what quantity. For information to be

The Push vs. Pull Diversion Diversion

By Jon Miller - September 16th, 2007

I’m still scratching my head over an IndustryWeek article titled The Great Push vs. Pull Diversion by By Edward S. Pound and Mark L. Spearman of Factory Physics, consultants and writers of one of my favorite Lean books. They stat

The Secret Lives of Toyota Term Employees, Episode 3

By Jon Miller - September 14th, 2007

The Road to Tahara Prison A Toyota term employee and blogger named Maruo wrote 72 posts over 4 months on his experience working at the Tahara plant. His blog is called Welcome to Tahara Prison (田原刑務所へようこそ). He signe

What Are You Building?

By Jon Miller - September 13th, 2007

For those of us who are in manufacturers, or in some way involved in making things or helping others make things, we think in terms of what we build, the materials, tools and processes we use. How would you answer if you were asked

Change Leadership, Not Change Management

By Jon Miller - September 12th, 2007

The Hithchhiker’s Guide to Lean is one of the top 10 books on Lean thinking and a must read. We’ve never done a proper, full book review of Jamie Flinchbaugh and Andy Carlino’s book. This is not that full review, but

Calculating Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY)

By Ron Pereira - September 12th, 2007

One of the most powerful operational metrics I know of is Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY). It’s used to assess the “true” yield of a given process. This includes what we often call the “hidden factory” t

Awareness of a Problem Does Not Mean Much

By Jon Miller - September 11th, 2007

Reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been thought provoking. It is a book about the impact of the highly improbable events on our lives and on history, and why humans do not forsee such Black Swan events. There are many

Hope for Chrysler

By Jon Miller - September 9th, 2007

My hope for Chrysler is that Jim Press can act as a consensus builder and not a heroic, problem solving executive. What Chrysler doesn’t need is a wave of Toyota Production System implementation in their factories or a dose of To

Six Sigma in Japan

By Ron Pereira - September 9th, 2007

Here is a question I honestly don’t know the answer to. Do companies in Japan use Six Sigma? When I say Six Sigma I am referring to someone following the standard DMAIC roadmap in attempts to reduce variation, defects, etc.

Job Breakdown Sheets for Teaching TPS

By Jon Miller - September 8th, 2007

Job Breakdown Sheets are used as part of Toyota’s approach to OJT (on the job training), called Job Instruction. A Job Breakdown Sheet details the Major Steps, Key Points and Reasons for the key points. Having a Job Breakdown She

Nardelli Poaches Another One

By Ron Pereira - September 6th, 2007

Big, big news today as a top Toyota executive in the US, James Press, has been “poached” by Chrysler. This is at least the second big named Toyota person to jump ship for no doubt huge money. Chrysler said Press will be ch

Humility