Posts tagged as:

gemba

Going to the Gemba

09.20.2011

My latest column for Industry Week, Lessons from the Road, titled Going to the Gemba has been posted. Here is an excerpt: Going to the gemba has become popular for the simple reason that it is powerfully effective. But there is more to it than getting up from your desk, as even this simple explanation attempts [...]

Read the full article →

Who is really running the business? [Guest Post]

08.31.2011

Guest Post: Jauna Werner is a certified Lean and Agile practitioner with experience in the retail, technology, medical and defense industries. Besides her work in industry, Jauna enjoys teaching Operations Management at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs and introducing the next generation of managers to Lean thinking and methods. View her profile in [...]

Read the full article →

What NOT to Learn from the Undercover Boss

02.15.2010

I don’t know if the show will last, but the Undercover Boss certainly has an interesting premise. Leaders of organizations go undercover in their own organizations to do front-line jobs, learning what is really going on. This is a great idea, and one consistent with lean where we talk about getting to the point of [...]

Read the full article →

Measurement Misnomers, and Toyota Dealership Problems

01.29.2010

On our LinkedIn Group for the Lean Learning Center, we get many good discussions and questions. We had one from Roger Cook that I thought was worth repeating and expanding upon. Here is the question: I’m curious if any of you have foolproof ways of insuring your metrics (which lean folks are famous for measuring [...]

Read the full article →

Observe with purpose

10.22.2009

Direct observation has been an under appreciated aspect of lean for most of its life. It has gotten a lot more attention in recent years, unfortunately this is thanks in part to the use of jargon, such as gemba and genchi genbutsu. For those of you who know me, you know I hate jargon. It [...]

Read the full article →