Is “Old Thinking” the Problem?
"Business authors sometimes suggest that well-established, successful companies decline, while newer companies do well, because the new companies are not encumbered by an earlier, outmoded way of thinking. On the…
Process Improvement
"The idea is to find a method that is better than the current one. (Note that "better" is not subjective. It must be quantifiable and measurable.) The Toyota Way Fieldbook…
Is it a Factory? …or a BRAIN?
"What is so striking about Toyota's Georgetown factory is, in fact, that it only looks like a car factory. It's really a big brain—a kind of laboratory focused on a…
Sustaining Improvements & the Tendency for Cultural Decline
"We are often asked how to sustain lean changes. A kaizen event produces many positive changes, a lean project reduces inventory, and we want to gather up the gains and…
Three Short quotes on “Gemba” / “Go See”
I'll move on to a another topic tomorrow, but conclude this topic with three short quotes: "Go see, ask why, show respect" (Fujio Cho, former president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing…
Deeply Understand the Current Condition
"The value of genchi genbutsu isn't necessarily the specific act of going and seeing, but the philosophy of deeply understanding the current condition before making a decision or trying to…
The Queen of Sheba goes to “Gemba”
First, my apologies to any of you who don't like the "Lean" tendency to use Japanese words. I ask you to bear with me for a brief discussion of the…
Going to the “Gemba”
"Going to the gemba means observing firsthand how our products are being designed, built, used, and what problems we have. There are always problems because we are never perfect. The…
What is “Gemba”?
"Gemba is roughly translated from the Japanese as 'the real place.' In this sense, real refers to where the action is happening. To illustrate, Japanese television news reporters covering the…
“Work” at the Beginning of Creation
"The Bible begins talking about work as soon as it begins talking about anything--that is how important and basic it is. The author of the book of Genesis describes God's…
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