From the category archives:

Gemba

Before Checking Email, Go To The Gemba

by Pete Abilla July 30, 2010
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Personal Improvement

At work, before you do anything else, go see your customer (internal or external), go see your team or staff – see how they are doing, go see and spend time where the work is done. Guess who benefits the most when you do this? That’s right, you. By practicing “go and see” (genchi genbutsu) [...]

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In Their Natural Environment

by Pete Abilla January 28, 2010

I scheduled a meeting this week and a room for our meeting.  During the course of our conversation, we began to discuss process and other items related to the their work.  Gratefully, I had enough awareness to stop the conversation and we, as a team, walked out to the Gemba and continued our discussion there. [...]

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Staring at Acoustic Ceiling Tiles

by Pete Abilla January 25, 2010
This entry is part 5 of 28 in the series queueing theory

There is a Design Thinking opportunity to Emergency Room care.  In my previous post, I discussed the time involved in waiting to receive care -queueing properties of ER care.  What I didn’t discuss is the feeling and experience of the patient during care.  That’s the topic for this post today. We know that ER Wait [...]

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Dichotomous Thinking at IDEO No More

by Pete Abilla November 11, 2009

Recently, Tim  Brown, the CEO at IDEO came to a realization that Design Thinking can coexist with Six Sigma and Lean.  For a while, his stance was really of black-and-white thinking: it’s either Design Thinking or Lean Thinking.  This position is akin to a student who believes that if he doesn’t earn an “A” in [...]

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Respect for People, Underutilized People, and Waste

by Pete Abilla September 24, 2009

The two pillars in Lean Thinking are Continuous Improvement and Respect for People.  What is not well understood is that most of what we know as The Toyota Production System comes from these two pillars.  The Lean sub-culture tends to over-emphasize the “tools” of Kaizen, but miss the point altogether, since the tools stem or [...]

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Unappetizing Spaghetti Diagrams

by Pete Abilla August 9, 2009
This entry is part 18 of 28 in the series Lean and Six Sigma

A Spaghetti Diagram is a simple visual tool to demonstrate the flow of material, flow of information, and flow of money in a process. The word “spaghetti” is descriptive because it describes flow that is not easily understood, can’t easily be followed, or if the flow is literally all over the place.  Indeed, a Spaghetti [...]

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Business and Garden-Variety Defects

by Pete Abilla August 4, 2009

Working in the garden can teach us a lot about the natural course of plants, trees, and weeds.  Indeed, there are many corollaries between weeds in the garden and defects in a business setting.  What can we learn from the natural world that are applicable in business? The Garden is the Gemba To properly care [...]

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Amazon and Zappos Sitting in a Tree

by Pete Abilla July 22, 2009

As most you know by now, Zappos has entered into a definitive agreement with Amazon.com and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.  This is exciting and, after speaking with my friends both at Amazon and at Zappos, they are all quite excited too.  Congratulations to Amazon, Zappos, Tony Hsieh, and Jeff Bezos 1  [...]

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Jeff Bezos and Root Cause Analysis

by Pete Abilla January 23, 2009

unrelated update: Deconstructing the Apple iPhone Supply Chain I’m always impressed when CEO’s demonstrate Deming-like behavior as they lead; it’s rare, but there’s almost a magical, mobilizing, and inspiring force that happens when CEO’s or corporate leaders behave in a respectful, inspiring, common-sense, and thoughtful way. Today, I’m reminded of an experience back in 2004 [...]

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