Evolving Excellence

A Little Promo

It's that time of the year again when you have the unique opportunity to see your humble Evolving  Excellence bloveators live and in person.  Yes, the Lean Accounting Summit!

Bill will be giving two presentations, first a pre-Summit workshop on the Principles of the Sales-Driven Lean Business Model.  Then on Friday he'll talk about Developing the Lean Value Proposition.

Kevin will be giving a presentation on Combining Strategic Planning, Hoshin, and Leader Standard Work for Financial Success.

There's still time to sign up for the largest lean accounting conference on the planet!  Be sure to stop by and say hi to us!

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Gemba Academy is having another one of its free DVD promotions in September.

With their unique subscription model you can train as many people as you want, as often as you want, at one site for one single low price.  No per-seat or per-view charges.  Quite the deal when you can train 10... or 100... or 1000+ people on over 188 lean video modules for less than a grand a year... total.  Compare that to traditional training in these tough economic times.

Now there's a promo for companies with multiple sites.  During the month of September if you subscribe more than one site you get, in addition to the traditional unlimited online access, all of the videos on a set of 26 DVDs for free!  One complete set of DVDs for each site.  View the promotion details here.

Learn why over 1,000 companies are now using Gemba Academy for their lean training!

Gemba Academy - New TPM Course

By Kevin Meyer

Gemba Academy has just released a new seven module online video training course on Total Productive Maintenance.

In this pre-recorded, live training seminar shot at the Peterbilt Manufacturing Training Center in Denton, TX, Mike Wroblewski, a senior lean consultant from Gemba Consulting and the Kaizen Institute explains why Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is not optional for lean thinking companies who rely on machines and equipment to satisfy customer demand.

During this course Mikes explains what TPM is, and isn't, while also covering important topics such as the 6 Big Losses and how to measure them using the extremely powerful Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) metric.

Throughout the course Mike, who definitely likes to have fun while teaching, shares many real life and extremely practical examples of TPM in action.

Mike's name might ring a bell - he's also one of our fellow bloggers over at Got Boondoggle.

Gemba Academy now has over 160 training modules, and the TPM course was the first group to also enable watching on mobile devices such as the iPad, iPhone, and Blackberry. Over 1000 organizations worldwide are now using Gemba Academy product, in practically every industry.

Other courses include: The Kaizen Way, 5S Workplace Productivity, Dealing With the Seven Deadly Wastes, Practical Problem Solving, Standard Work, Leader Standard Work, Transforming Your Value Streams, The Seven Quality Control Tools, Quick Changeover: The SMED System, and Lean Lingo Explained.

Visit Gemba Academy to learn more.

Gemba Academy Turns Two!

By Kevin Meyer

In March of 2009 I, along with Jon Miller and Ron Pereira, launched Gemba Academy.

We had no idea what to expect when the site first went live… initially we offered one 12 module HD-quality video course and had zero, as in 0, customers.

Fast Forward Two Years

Fast forward two years. We now offer more than 145 online and DVD based lean training videos covering multiple lean topics such as 5S, the 7 Wastes, Kaizen Events, Standard Work, Leader Standard Work, Value Stream Mapping, Quick Changeover, Practical Problem Solving, and much more.

Add the fact that more than 1,000 companies around the world now use Gemba Academy to train individuals and groups and it’s safe to say we’ve grown much faster than we could have ever imagined.

Free 19 DVD Promotion

So, to celebrate our two year anniversary we’ve decided to bring back the most popular promotion we’ve ever done at Gemba Academy.

Specifically, between March 1 and March 31 anyone that purchases a 6-month or 1-year online subscription to the Complete Lean Package will receive the Complete Lean Package set of 19 DVDs absolutely free.

This promotion will remain open to the first 500 customers or until March 31, whichever comes first.

All the details can be found here.

New at Superfactory - December 2010

Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website. The new content is featured in the monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.

The featured article is Bill Waddell's recent blog post, Lean on the Hoof. The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

Those of us who are in the business of teaching lean are engaged in the endless pursuit of the perfect example, the best analogy, the ideal teaching tool. John Stossel and Dr. Jude Capper, an assistant professor of dairy sciences at Washington State University may have finally provided it. In a piece on what he terms "another food myth" Stossel and the good professor debunk the idea that grass fed 'naturally raised' cows are better for the environment than grain fed ones bulked up in feed lots.

What does the feeding of cattle have to do with lean, you might ask? Cycle time. According to the doctor, a grain fed cow goes from birth to burgers in 15 months, while a corn fed one takes an 8 month slower path to McDonald's. That 50% longer cycle time causes the cow to incur "extra eight extra months of feed, of water, land use, obviously, and also an awful lot of waste. If we have a grass-fed animal, compared to a corn-fed animal, that's like adding almost one car to the road for every single animal. That's a huge increase in carbon footprints."

The featured book this month is The Shibumi Strategy by Matthew May.  The following is a brief summary, click here for more information.

The Shibumi Strategy is a little book about a big breakthrough. It tells the story of a hardworking family man who finds himself in crisis when his company closes. Through his struggle, and guidance from unlikely sources, he learns subtle lessons in the form of “personal zen” principles, coming to understand that it is often the involuntary challenge, the setbacks, that harbor the power to transform. When approached as an opportunity — no easy task when simple survival is the first order of business—unforeseen trials can sometimes result in an altogether new lease on life.

In other news we have recently launched a new product, The Lean Enterprise Strategy Kit, designed to help individual organizations and smaller companies create, execute, and continuously improve a robust lean-oriented strategic plan.

• Combines the best aspects of lean-centric strategy deployment and hoshin planning methods with traditional strategic planning to create strategies.
• Core principles are developed first to create a solid foundation for long-term strategy.
• A proprietary 40-topic lean assessment is used to look at world class behaviors and systems, not just the implementation of tools like most lean assessments.
• Each section includes a detailed PowerPoint presentation, worksheets, tools, documents, and recommended deployment methods in MS-Office format for easy customization.

Our partner Gemba Academy released the first modules of a new course titled The Kaizen Way.  Gemba Academy now offers over 127 HD-quality video modules on lean manufacturing topics.

We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:

• PowerPoint Presentations: Over 115 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, lean leadership, lean industries, quality, lean enterprise, and safety concepts.  
• Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
• Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
• Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
• Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.

For all you LinkedIn junkies, we have created a LinkedIn group for Superfactory, which now has over 5,000 members.  Join the group to  network with other Superfactory enthusiasts and to show our logo on your profile.  If you haven't explored LinkedIn, check it out to see why over 17 million professionals use it for networking.

We are always looking for new articles and other content.  Contact us via the Superfactory website if you would like to contribute to our knowledge base.

Gemba Academy - 17 Lean Training DVD Promotion

Just a short note to let you know that there are only 2 days left to take advantage of the special 17 Lean Training DVDs promotion we're running over at Gemba Academy.

As a reminder, anyone that purchases a 6 month ($495) or 1 year ($795) online subscription to the Complete Lean Package will also receive these same videos on 17 professionally produced DVDs for no additional cost.  Sold separately, these DVDs normally retail for $795.

This promotion will end at midnight CST on November 30, 2010. 

All the details can be found at http://www.gembaacademy.com/promo.

New at Superfactory - November 2010

Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website. The new content is featured in the monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.

The featured article is by Mike Micklewright and is titled Dyslexics Wanted - How those with the condition can thrive in a lean environment. The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

There’s a good chance that 20 percent of the people reading this article have dyslexia. Are you one of them? Are you proud that you have dyslexia? You should be. People with dyslexia typically are smart and creative. I wish I had it. Perhaps then, I would be leading my own huge consulting and training company rather than working as an independent consultant and trainer for the past 16 years.

I’ve asked my wife, Donna, if she thought I was dyslexic (kind of hoping she would say yes, as if that would suddenly make me more creative). She didn’t think so, but did feel I had at least one symptom of someone with dyslexia. She thought I did have… um… what was it again? Oh yeah, “word-finding issues,” which is oftentimes, but not always, a symptom.

I thought I might be a little dyslexic because I believe I have one of the positive characteristics of dyslexia—an ability to look at the big picture, think conceptually, and see relationships between two unrelated topics to form a third relationship or product. Maybe this is why I’ve been able to do stand-up comedy every so often, and how I linked “dyslexia” with “lean.”

The featured book this month is The A3 Workbook by Daniel Matthews.  The following is a brief summary, click here for more information.

The A3 Workbook: Unlock Your Problem-Solving Mind is designed to teach A3 Problem Solving to workers at every level of an organization. This workbook provides a practical tool for solving specific problems or for making a specific proposal, while also encouraging the development of a corporate culture that empowers all employees to support continuous improvement. The workbook follows the progression of a basic A3 Problem Solving format, offering instructions every step of the way.

In other news we have recently launched a new product, The Lean Enterprise Strategy Kit, designed to help individual organizations and smaller companies create, execute, and continuously improve a robust lean-oriented strategic plan.

• Combines the best aspects of lean-centric strategy deployment and hoshin planning methods with traditional strategic planning to create strategies.
• Core principles are developed first to create a solid foundation for long-term strategy.
• A proprietary 40-topic lean assessment is used to look at world class behaviors and systems, not just the implementation of tools like most lean assessments.
• Each section includes a detailed PowerPoint presentation, worksheets, tools, documents, and recommended deployment methods in MS-Office format for easy customization.

Our partner Gemba Academy released the first modules of a new course titled The Kaizen Way.  Gemba Academy now offers over 127 HD-quality video modules on lean manufacturing topics.

We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:

• PowerPoint Presentations: Over 115 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, lean leadership, lean industries, quality, lean enterprise, and safety concepts.  
• Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
• Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
• Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
• Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.

For all you LinkedIn junkies, we have created a LinkedIn group for Superfactory, which now has over 5,000 members.  Join the group to  network with other Superfactory enthusiasts and to show our logo on your profile.  If you haven't explored LinkedIn, check it out to see why over 17 million professionals use it for networking.

We are always looking for new articles and other content.  Contact us via the Superfactory website if you would like to contribute to our knowledge base.

Announcing the Lean Enterprise Strategy Kit

Factory Strategies Group has created the Lean Enterprise Strategy Kit designed to help individual organizations and smaller companies create, execute, and continuously improve a robust lean-oriented strategic plan. This Kit is available for immediate download at Superfactory and:

• Combines the best aspects of lean-centric strategy deployment and hoshin planning methods with traditional strategic planning to create strategies.
• Core principles are developed first to create a solid foundation for long-term strategy.
• A proprietary 40-topic lean assessment is used to look at world class behaviors and systems, not just the implementation of tools like most lean assessments.
• Each section includes a detailed PowerPoint presentation, worksheets, tools, documents, and recommended deployment methods in MS-Office format for easy customization.
• The lean assessment tool will let you identify problem areas and opportunities, from which you can identify appropriate tools such as Gemba Academy training or Superfactory PowerPoint presentations.

 

	Principles, Vision, and Mission Develop the bedrock core principles of the organization, then create vision and mission statements to help guide strategy.
	Assessment Use a detailed 40-topic Lean Enterprise Assessment combined with a Strategic Environment Assessment using traditional SWOT, PEST, Porter, and other analysis methods.
	Develop Strategy Use various analysis and brainstorming methods to identify long-term strategies, three-year objectives, and annual improvement programs then reinforce with hoshin strategy deployment methods.
	Execution Learn about tools to ensure organizational alignment, then drive accountability via daily meetings, gemba walks, visual management, and leader standard work.
	Review Use hansei reflection to review and analyze daily, project, and long-term strategy performance and results to prepare for continuing the improvement cycle.

To learn more about the Lean Enterprise Strategy Kit visit Superfactory.

New at Superfactory - October 2010

Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website. The new content is featured in the monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.

The featured article is by Bob Emiliani and is titled Where are the Lean Economists?. The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

Believe it or not, the Lean community could actually use some help from economists, the very same people who largely failed to notice asset bubbles that led to the Great Recession (2007-2009) and who now seem incapable of determining their root causes. As a result, we watched Nobel Prize winning economists guess at cause-and-effect. Wouldn't it be wonderful to instead see economists apply Toyota’s scientific problem-solving process to economic crises and identify practical countermeasures to reduce the frequency and severity of economic problems in the future?

Despite their spotty record as social scientists, economists remain very influential. Executives in companies large and small have long formulated many important views based on the work of economists, and these views play a prominent role in management decision-making.

Lean management has always been at a disadvantage compared to conventional management in part because economists have never truly understood flow; not for almost 100 years, since the time of Henry Ford's Model T. That is a long time to have your head in the sand. It seems that few economists have actually had front-line operations experience, and fewer still, if any, have had experiences designing flow production (processing) systems or operating one as a cell leader, for example. That is how they would really learn the technical and economic benefits of flow.

How might Lean management prosper if more economists knew about flow in detail? Economists could inform executives that Lean is safe for them to fully embrace (both "Continuous Improvement" and "Respect for People"), not some crazy thing to avoid or adopt half-heartedly. They likely would be more convincing to more executives than even the most accomplished Lean CEOs.

The featured book this month is Lean Human Resources by Cheryl Jekiel.  The following is a brief summary, click here for more information.

Encouraging a long overdue shift in thinking, this book gives managers and executives the means to maximize employee potential by first showing them how to increase the improvement power of their HR departments. Cheryl M. Jekiel, who has been implementing Lean initiatives out of HR offices for 20 years, defines the people-related approaches and practices needed to alter any cultural dynamic that keeps employees from leveraging their peak abilities. She looks at why so many companies allow this sort of waste to exist, how traditional HR departments have not been especially effective in combating waste, and why today’s HR department should be seen differently, as a partner delivering exceptional customer service to employees.

In other news we have recently launched two new companion websites:

• Superfactory TV: A categorized listing of hundreds of lean-oriented videos.
• Lean Pics: a photo blog showing examples of lean manufacturing concepts and ideas

Our partner Gemba Academy released the first modules of a new course titled The Kaizen Way.  Gemba Academy now offers over 112 HD-quality video modules on lean manufacturing topics.

We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:

• PowerPoint Presentations: Over 115 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, lean leadership, lean industries, quality, lean enterprise, and safety concepts.  
• Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
• Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
• Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
• Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.

For all you LinkedIn junkies, we have created a LinkedIn group for Superfactory, which now has over 5,000 members.  Join the group to  network with other Superfactory enthusiasts and to show our logo on your profile.  If you haven't explored LinkedIn, check it out to see why over 17 million professionals use it for networking.

We are always looking for new articles and other content.  Contact us via the Superfactory website if you would like to contribute to our knowledge base.

New 7 Quality Control Tools Course at Gemba Academy

Our partner Gemba Academy has released a new online training course called "The Seven Quality Control Tools."  This 22-module course goes through the various types of quality control graphs, pareto charts, check sheets, cause-and-effect diagrams, scatter diagrams, histograms, and control charts with supporting examples and applications.

Gemba Academy courses are unique in that they are a series of high definition quality video modules, coupled with quizzes and supporting downloads developed by lean leaders with real shop floor experience.  HD quality lets you watch the video at your computer, or project the video to a large training room with no perceived loss of resolution or quality.  The 10 minute videos are designed to be the optimal length for an effective learning experience.  The subscription model (although DVDs are also available) is unique in that there is no per-person charge - it is by site, which lets you train as many as you want for one low cost.

Take a look at all of the Gemba Academy lean learning courses, which now include the following:

• Lean Starter Package - a FREE group of 8 video modules to demonstrate the technology and quality
• 5S Workplace Productivity (9 modules)
• Dealing with the Seven Deadly Wastes (9 modules)
• Practical Problem Solving (20 modules)
• Transforming Your Value Streams (16 modules)
• The Seven Quality Control Tools (22 modules)
• Quick Changeover: The SMED System (12 modules)
• Lean Lingo Explained (12 modules)

New courses are being added every couple months and are included in the subscription packages.

As a special promotion until the end of July, new subscribers to the Complete Lean Package Premium (all courses plus the DVDs) will receive all 100+ Superfactory PowerPoint training presentations for free!

Give Gemba Academy a try - we think you'll be impressed with the technology, quality, and depth of the content!

New at Superfactory - July 2010

Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website. The new content is featured in the monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.

The featured article is by Bob Emiliani and is titled Woollard's Eighteen Principles of Flow Production.  The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

Frank G. Woollard, the long-forgotten 1920s British pioneer of flow production, made many unique contributions including the establishment of 18 principles of flow production. Woollard recognized that flow necessarily drives everyone to the same principles and eventually to the same practices as well. Knowing this can help us avoid the perennial problem in Lean management of periodically re-discovering that which was previously done so well but has been forgotten.

In his book Principles of Mass and Flow Production, published in 1954, Frank G. Woollard said: “When setting up a flow production plant there are certain basic principles that must be obeyed. They are all simple and virtually axiomatic…” Mr. Woollard identified 18 principles, listed below, all of which relate directly to our current day understanding of Lean production.

The featured book this month is Building a Lean Fulfillment Stream by Robert Martichenko.  The following is a brief summary, click here for more information.

Building a Lean Fulfillment Stream will change the way you think about your supply chain and logistics networks giving you a way to act using lean principles to transform and continuously improve. In this pioneering workbook, lean logistics veterans Robert Martichenko and Kevin von Grabe explain step-by-step a comprehensive, real-life implementation process for optimizing your entire fulfillment stream from raw materials to customers, including two critical concepts: calculating the total cost of fulfillment and collaborating with across all functions and firms along the stream.

In other news we have recently launched two new companion websites:

• Superfactory TV: A categorized listing of hundreds of lean-oriented videos.
• Lean Pics: a photo blog showing examples of lean manufacturing concepts and ideas

Our partner Gemba Academy released the first module of a new course titled The Seven Quality Control Tools.  Modules have also been added to the Transforming Your Value Streams and Practical Problem Solving courses.  Gemba Academy now offers over 85 HD-quality video modules on lean manufacturing topics.

We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:

• PowerPoint Presentations: Over 115 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, lean leadership, lean industries, quality, lean enterprise, and safety concepts.  Special promotion: purchase a Package or Bundle of presentations and receive the Gemba Academy Lean Starter Package DVD ($97 value) at no cost.
• Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
• Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
• Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
• Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.

For all you LinkedIn junkies, we have created a LinkedIn group for Superfactory, which now has over 5,000 members.  Join the group to  network with other Superfactory enthusiasts and to show our logo on your profile.  If you haven't explored LinkedIn, check it out to see why over 17 million professionals use it for networking.

We are always looking for new articles and other content.  Contact us via the Superfactory website if you would like to contribute to our knowledge base.