Ride the Wave, Not the Board

by Pete Abilla August 9, 2010

I was on vacation recently and, on one of the days, we went to Lindamar Beach at Pedro Point in Pacifica.  That was the beach I went to, probably 3 out of 5 days, at 5 AM during my senior year – to surf.  Needless to say, I wasn’t at school much my senior year, [...]

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Lean and Six Sigma: PDCA and DMAIC Comparison

by Pete Abilla July 31, 2010
This entry is part 6 of 28 in the series Lean and Six Sigma

Integrating or reconciling the PDCA framework from Lean and DMAIC from Six Sigma is the topic of this post. Since both methodologies and frameworks share a common history, it is no surprise that integrating their respective frameworks was not difficult to do. Below is my attempt at exactly that. Below the PDCA and DMAIC comparison [...]

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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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Take The Stairs

by Pete Abilla July 29, 2010
This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Personal Improvement

As Lean Thinkers, we know that small changes can make a big difference. In other words, with pun intended, small steps make a big difference. So, today, when you go to work, take the stairs. Here are the big benefits from a small thing, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator: People spend [...]

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Lean Thinking and Restaurant Operations

by Pete Abilla July 28, 2010

In an old Mckinsey and Company article I found recently, there was a small snippet case study that caught my eye. They share an experience of a Restaurant chain, or maybe a fast food chain, that applied the principles of Lean Thinking with amazing results. In their words, The [restaurant] mapped daily changes in demand [...]

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Venture Capital and Overproduction

by Pete Abilla July 27, 2010

One of the 7 Wastes in the Toyota Production System (Lean) is Overproduction. Within the world of entrepreneurship and venture capital, Overproduction can take on two forms: Building a Product nobody wants Building Features that don’t add value to the customer There are variations of the above, such as building more features than is needed [...]

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Solution in Search of a Problem

by Pete Abilla July 26, 2010

Most view innovation a big bang type of exercise – or an “aha” moment that came out of nowhere. Indeed, cogito ergo sum – an invention akin to “out nothing, something”. A look back in history will tell us that this notion is completely false. In fact, looking at the components of the iPhone, you’ll [...]

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Lean is Easy to Understand, Hard to Do

by Pete Abilla July 25, 2010

James Surowiecki 1 wrote in the New Yorker a piece about Toyota, the Toyota Production System, and innovation. In that piece, he distinguishes between an big bang innovation versus many, small, incremental improvements. He claims that viewing innovation as only a “big bang” is nearsighted and argues that slow, steady, and incremental improvements are the [...]

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Unhappy Employees Result in Unhappy Customers

by Pete Abilla July 24, 2010

Of the two major pillars in Lean Thinking, one is Respect for People. From Toyota’s perspective, it’s almost a moral imperative to develop humans and treat them well and fairly. But, there’s also a very pragmatic reason: the way a company treats its employees will be the way those employees will treat the customer. the [...]

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