Latest Blog Posts for To The Gemba

• 6 Principles of an Effective Lean Management System
  on May 30, 2011
  Many years ago, I had the good fortune to tour a manufacturing facility that had a fully implemented lean system. This was during a time when lean was new to most companies in the US. The plant that I visited had been set up by the Japanese arm of th...
• How To Navigate Around The Next Roadblock
  on Apr 25, 2011
  Recently one evening, I was driving home from a meeting when I suddenly came upon a roadblock. There was a sign that said “Detour Ahead”. Feeling irritated, but wanting to get home, I had no choice but to follow the detour, not knowing the road i...
• Our Daily Gemba Walk
  on Apr 18, 2011
  1-2-3, teamwork!”. The saying changes from day to day, but no meeting ever ends without a cheer. This is how our ‘all hands on deck’ team concludes our daily 15 minute meeting. It always leaves a smile on my face. It’s a great team, made up o...
• Effectively Leading and Mentoring Others
  on Apr 12, 2011
  Let me tell you about Lisa. She is a welding operator who is relatively new with our organization. Prior to joining us, she had welding experience at another company. When she first joined, she had to go through a really steep learning curve, because...
• 4 Ways That The Quality Function Can Save Money
  on Apr 10, 2011
  The Quality Assurance / Quality Control functions can save the company a lot of money by being a proactive group to the organization. Here are just a few examples of how money can be saved:Kaizen activities - Quality engineers that are actively invol...
• Implementing A Quality System From Scratch
  on Apr 8, 2011
  I recently visited a small company that seems to be growing at a rapid pace. I observed a bee hive of activity with people busy going about thier work at various stations. Everybody was very focused on the mission at hand - complete the work in proce...
• How to Build a House in 3 hours
  on Apr 2, 2011
  This is an excellent example of planning, standard work, teamwork, and innovation. Also, they were able to cut the time in half from "learning by doing". Please share your thoughts with me. Here is part 1:  And here is part 2: ...
• What Do You See?
  on Apr 1, 2011
  When I was going through my Black Belt training, the instructor pulled out some coins and tossed them on a desk. He said, "What do you see?" I tried that on my 7 year old son this morning. I asked him, "what do you see"? He responded, "62 cents". OK,...
• Taking care of the customer
  on Mar 30, 2011
  Two days ago, a customer entered a complaint because they found a defective part in their process. Once I became aware of this complaint, I immediately checked how many pieces we had sent them. I then called them right away to inquire about their inv...
• To The Gemba
  on Mar 27, 2011
  Hello and welcome to my blog. With the start of this blog, I will occasionally share with you my experiences so that I can be helpful to others in thier own quality improvement efforts. I hope that you come back often to read my thoughts and leave a...

{pvComments::user_name}

{pvComments::date}

Delete 

{pvComments::comment}

Post a Comment