Gemba Academy

Lean Six Sigma is Not Lean

By Jon Miller - February 21st, 2007

Lean Six Sigma is not Lean. It is Six Sigma, but one that is more “Lean” than just regular “Six Sigma.” In the English language the adjective (Lean) modifies the noun or subject word (Six Sigma). So Lean Six Sig

Japanese Words

By Ron Pereira - February 20th, 2007

Over the years I have heard American and European employees from many companies grumble when hearing Japanese words. This is most apparent during Lean training. Personally, I feel it is extremely important to use the Japanese names for

My “Sensei” Wife

By Ron Pereira - February 20th, 2007

My wife is the best. As I have to travel some for my work she takes care of the house, kids, dogs, and pretty much anything else you can imagine without me around to yell at… I mean without me to help, of course.Well, in an attempt t

Let’s Establish a Waste and Efficiency Tip Line… and then Another One

By Jon Miller - February 20th, 2007

I caught a rerun of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night on television. The bit of news involved the $22 billion in cash lost in Iraq during Paul Bremer’s time there. Both political parties want to be seen as addressing thi

Bollinger Bands

By Ron Pereira - February 19th, 2007

I am not an active trader of stocks or options although I do enjoy reading and studying the methods people use to “time” the markets so to speak. I will confess I have tried to time the markets myself but have gotten whacked more t

Getting the CEO on a Kaizen Team is Like Pulling Teeth

By Jon Miller - February 19th, 2007

As I was flipping through my copy of the February 2007 issue of Dental Economics today, an interview with two Danaher executives caught my eye. Danaher is known as a leading American company who has quietly and profitably grown through

NASCAR Fans React!

By Ron Pereira - February 18th, 2007

I’m not a NASCAR fan nor foe. I could really care less about the sport but this article bothered me. It seems two popular drivers, Darrel Waltrip and Dale Jarrett, have decided to drive Toyota cars and many NASCAR faithful are bother

The Trouble with Exploring “all options” at Chrysler

By Jon Miller - February 18th, 2007

Chrysler is feeling the squeeze. Third quarter losses were twice as large as projected. The DaimlerChrysler leadership are using their wits in an ongoing effort to turn things around. Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche has stated that R

Not Enough “Toyota Way” in Factory Air?

By Jon Miller - February 16th, 2007

There’s a good article over at the New York Times on February 15, 2007 titled The ‘Toyota Way’ Is Translated for a New Generation of Foreign Managers. It’s not about putting Jeffrey Liker’s book The Toyota

Two Bin Kanban

By Ron Pereira - February 15th, 2007

A two bin kanban is one of the most popular kanban systems due to its simplicity. The basic idea is an operator will get the material they need from one of the bins while the other bin is being refilled. When things are working properl

Toyota Rebrands in Canada

By Jon Miller - February 15th, 2007

Toyota Canada’s new guiding principle, slogan and value statement, to put it in marketing speak, is ‘make things better’. Toyota Canada gave itself a giant pat on the back in explaining the results of their extensive

Standard Work Needed for Use of Windows

By Jon Miller - February 14th, 2007

In chapter 32 of Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management, Ohno said, “There is a correct sequence to kaizen.” We must first study and improve the work itself (manual work) then improve the process (sequence, steps) and th

Excellent Six Sigma Resource

By Ron Pereira - February 13th, 2007

If you are involved with Six Sigma, statistics, quality control, or anything remotely similar I highly recommend you check out Keith Bower’s website. I came across this website a year or so ago and have learned so much. His podcast�

Rarely Has Ranting Been This Good

By Jon Miller - February 12th, 2007

Blogger BDG123 at Rantings on Markets, Economics and Business Strategy is an electrical engineer and mathematician by training, one-time corporate consultant and corporate sales and marketing executive in the information technology and

Why Some Lean Six Sigma Programs Fail – Part 2

By Ron Pereira - February 12th, 2007

In part 1 of “Why Lean Sigma Programs Fail” I discussed “activity centered programs.” Now I will introduce the alternative to ACP’s – results driven programs. Very simply stated RDP’s, as I will call them, aim for measura

Building a Lean Video Library

By Jon Miller - February 11th, 2007

Our clients often ask us to help them with building a Lean video library. They want us to recommend 5 or 10 videos on Lean manufacturing that will help their people learn first the general concepts, then the more in-depth tools and sys

Why Some Lean Six Sigma Programs Fail – Part 1

By Ron Pereira - February 11th, 2007

If you have not read the Harvard Business Review on Change I highly recommend it. It is a series of case studies focused on change management. One of the case studies is called, “Successful Change Programs Begin with Results” by Ro

Waiting

By Ron Pereira - February 10th, 2007

If you pick up any book about Lean or attend a Lean training course you will likely hear how overproduction is the mother of all wastes. OK, in the truest sense it probably is… especially for those that manufacture any type of produc

How to Calculate Standard Work in Process (SWIP) Quantity

By Jon Miller - February 8th, 2007

Standard Work is one of the more misunderstood concepts in Lean manufacturing. It is neither standardization nor work standards. You can learn more about Standard Work by looking at the following blog posts: Reflections on Standard Wor

Lean Lexicon

By Ron Pereira - February 8th, 2007

I was fortunate enough to receive training from Gemba Research which was excellent and I highly recommend them, as I have stated before. But I would be doing the nice people over at Lean Enterprise Institute an injustice if I didn’t

Stop the Finger Pointing!

By Ron Pereira - February 7th, 2007

I despise, from the deepest pit of my being, the blame game that occurs within so many companies that manufacture products – any product. This problem is sadly amplified in western companies. It typically goes something like this, �

The Toyota Way is Doing Obvious Things

By Jon Miller - February 6th, 2007

…but doing them exceptionally well. This was a comment from an economist on a TV news program in Japan I heard some while ago, that seems to have become common knowledge in Japanese business consciousness. This idea of the Toyota

Standard Work

By Ron Pereira - February 6th, 2007

Since the mission of this blog is to offer ideas for how to align the strengths of both Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma I wanted discuss a topic I firmly believe all continuous improvement practitioners should practice. This topic is

We Made Someone at Toyota Headquarters Unhappy

By Jon Miller - February 5th, 2007

We teach the Toyota system. We want to teach it to as many people as want to learn about it. As a consequence we think we provide Toyota with good PR. It seems not everyone at Toyota headquarters agrees. Here is an e-mail we received l

Electronic Kanban

By Ron Pereira - February 3rd, 2007

Here is a question for all the Lean gurus out there. Is “Electronic Kanban” an oxymoron? I have my own opinion but would like to hear yours.

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