Gemba Academy

One Sign of a Lean Culture: Kaizen or Get Out

By Jon Miller - September 22nd, 2006

I had lunch yesterday with a local client of ours. He owns a small factory that employs about 30 people. The products they make are fairly simple and the processes are not complex. They have made some big changes in the factory layout

A Workplace that Encourages Movement Gets Good Results

By Jon Miller - September 20th, 2006

A classroom that encourages movement gets good grades. One of our team members recently spotted this article during a Northwest Airlines flight in the September 2006 in-flight magazine. According to a study done by the Mayo Clinic with

It’s Not Really “Go See”, It’s “Go Observe”

By Jon Miller - September 18th, 2006

The Toyota Production System principle of genchi gembutsu is often translated in English as “go see”. This rolls off the tongue a lot easier than genchi gembutsu, but it doesn’t quite capture the essence. The word

Healthcare Costs Can Be Cut

By Jon Miller - September 15th, 2006

Healthcare cost can be cut. So says a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article by the same title on September 14, 2006. The examples from Virginia Mason Medical Center do demonstrate that healthcare costs can be cut, but is this enough? The a

How to Learn the Fundamentals of the Toyota Production System in 30 Days

By Jon Miller - September 13th, 2006

Anyone can be taught to do kaizen in 30 days. If you’re wondering how to learn the fundamentals of the Toyota Production System in 30 days (or how to teach it) you can take a hint from the June 23, 2006 article in Nikkei Joho Str

What Experience Do You Have in My Industry?

By Jon Miller - September 12th, 2006

“What experience do you have in my industry?” I heard this again today for the nth time, with n being a number sufficiently large such that n x $1 would buy a nice lunch for everyone who reads this today. The “industr

Lean by Any Means Necessary

By Jon Miller - September 10th, 2006

We toured a tier 1 automotive supplier recently with a group of our customers on our Japan Kaikaku Experience. Our customers learned many things but there was one main lesson. First, the General Manager who took us on the in-depth gemb

What is Flexibility for Lean Manufacturing?

By Jon Miller - September 8th, 2006

Flexibility is a term that is often used interchangeably with Lean manufacturing. But what does it actually mean, and how does it relate to Lean philosophy? The Lean blog published an insightful post on Thursday, September 7th titled &

Hoshin is 5S for Your Head

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2006

Busy, busy days. It’s days like these that it becomes more important to avoid working harder, longer and instead take a precious moment out of your day to examine whether what you are doing is really adding value towards the ulti

Workflow Design: Horizontal Handling vs. Vertical Handling

By Jon Miller - September 4th, 2006

Here’s a follow up to a previous post of the one point lesson on operational availability vs. rate of operation. A reader pointed out that pictures and not just words would be helpful, so in answer to a related question about multi-p

A Heijunka Economy

By Jon Miller - September 2nd, 2006

As summer officially comes to a close in the United States this weekend with the kick-off of the American Football season and something Americans call Labor Day, I find myself thinking about heijunka (averaging of both your demand volu

Look Up from Your Work and Ask: “Could We Flow This?”

By Jon Miller - September 1st, 2006

At the center of the Toyota Production System, and therefore of Lean manufacturing, is the fundamental principle of creating flow. For example in a machine shop this means connecting processes so that an operator can be a multi-process

One Point Lesson: Operational Availability vs. Rate of Operation

By Jon Miller - August 31st, 2006

What is Operational Availability? First, a brief Japanese lesson, if I may. 可動率 is Operational Availability and is pronounced “ka-dou-ritsu”. 稼動率 is Rate of Operation and is pronounced “ka-dou-ritsu”

Ouch! Change Hurts

By Jon Miller - August 30th, 2006

There’s an interesting article titled The Neuroscience of Leadership in Strategy+Business magazine. Thanks to Kathleen Fasanella for spotting and writing about it on her Fashion Incubator blog. The article has a tempting tagline

While We’re Promoting Lean Author Interviews on other Blogs…

By Jon Miller - August 29th, 2006

Shmula is a blog with a funny sounding name (who am I to talk?) and the occasional gem of a post about Lean. There is an August 28th interview with Mary Poppendick, author of Lean Software Development and Implementing Lean Software Dev

Lean Blog Interview with Dr. Jeffrey Liker

By Jon Miller - August 28th, 2006

Visit the Lean Blog to hear Mark Graban’s podcast interview of Dr. Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way and Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineerring at the University of Michigan. Find out answers to pressing Lean m

What is Jishuken?

By Jon Miller - August 27th, 2006

For people who have worked at Toyota or companies strongly influenced by Toyota, the term “kaizen” is used more in the general sense, closer to philosophy than activity. The term jishuken is used to describe the intentional

Can I Get an A3 Report with those 2.38 Million Recalls?

By Jon Miller - August 24th, 2006

Toyota has made public apologies this year for both the number of recalls and goofs handling them. A Wall Street Journal article today titled Toyota May Delay New Models To Address Rising Quality Issues speculates that Toyota will slow

E-mail 5S

By Jon Miller - August 23rd, 2006

A Wall Street Journal article today says How You Handle Your E-mail Inbox Says A Lot About You. The article identifies that e-mail is overwhelming people. There is an example of one person who was stressed out by 500 e-mails in their i

That’s What I Call Cosmic Irony

By Jon Miller - August 22nd, 2006

What do you call it when a meeting of the Lean manufacturing leaders from around the globe gets cancelled at the last minute by the senior leadership of the organization, citing “business needs”? I call it cosmic irony. One of our

The Kaizen Turnaround Kings at Danaher

By Jon Miller - August 21st, 2006

If the U.S.A. needed a poster-child for kaizen and Lean manufacturing success, $20 billion industrial holding company Danaher Corporation would be a good candidate. As this Investor’s Business Daily article details, they have bee

The Environment Where Takt Time is Ideal

By Jon Miller - August 17th, 2006

The topic of takt time and specifically “how does it apply to me?” seems to be a popular one, based on comments left by readers at this blog entry. The latest from John asks for advice on the environment where TAKT time is

Kaizen Song: Ship It

By Jon Miller - August 16th, 2006

I’m running low on these. I do recall thinking this one was almost too easy. Enjoy. Ship It (to the music of “Whip It” by Devo) Track that WIP If you want the parts to ship Parts on the rack Some of them are scrap When takt time

This Is An Experiment

By Jon Miller - August 15th, 2006

A few weeks ago when I returned to our office after having been on the road for several weeks there were some big changes. The entire layout of the office had been flipped from one side to the other. This is not so hard to do since we

Lean Healthcare Plumbs New Depths at ?? Hospital

By Jon Miller - August 14th, 2006

The news from Jean’s workplace, where consultants have been giving Lean healthcare a bad name, has gotten worse. Jean writes: I think we, as a staff are beginning to feel like chicken pluckers in the Golden Plump Place where Fast

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