Virtual Tours

In this Gem­ba Acad­e­my Live! series we vis­it Paragon Med­ical, locat­ed in Pierce­ton, Indi­ana. Join us on a vir­tu­al tour as we learn how Paragon uses visu­al man­age­ment, engages peo­ple in CI, tracks and improves machine per­for­mance and OEE, and how they use the yel­low belt, green belt, and black belt pro­gram to devel­op CI skills and deliv­er sav­ings. We also vis­it their new facil­i­ty where they are trans­form­ing their process­es through adap­tive manufacturing.

The true pow­er of con­tin­u­ous improve­ment lies in its abil­i­ty to help peo­ple reach their full poten­tial. In this course, we vis­it The Light­house for the Blind, an extra­or­di­nary orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for indi­vid­u­als who are blind, deaf, Deaf­Blind, and/​or have oth­er dis­abil­i­ties. With pres­ti­gious clients like Boe­ing, NASA, and the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment, The Light­house for the Blind uses con­tin­u­ous improve­ment both in a tra­di­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­ing con­text and also as a way to meet the unique needs and abil­i­ties of each indi­vid­ual employee.

In this course, we vis­it uphol­stery solu­tions provider Kaas Tai­lored to get an up-close look at how they man­age their high-mix low-vol­ume pro­duc­tion, pro­mote kaizen, build man­age­ment rou­tines through gem­ba walks and dai­ly account­abil­i­ty prac­tices, and bal­ance long-term hoshin plans with month­ly exper­i­men­ta­tion. We also join a tour group as they learn about the sev­en types of waste and wit­ness var­i­ous flow sim­u­la­tions. Watch and be inspired by all the improve­ments the Kaas Tai­lored team has made so far on their lean journey.

Gem­ba Acad­e­my jour­neys to Limavady, North­ern Ire­land to meet with the team at Seat­ing Mat­ters. This video series is focused on two things — why Seat­ing Mat­ters start­ed their lean jour­ney and how they went about imple­ment­ing lean.

The Gem­ba Acad­e­my crew takes a road trip to Lan­cast­er Texas to meet up with the folks behind Texas Name­plate. This video series is focused on sustainability.

Ron and the Gem­ba Acad­e­my team make their way to Moun­tain Home, Ida­ho, to meet with Chuck Cec­ca­rel­li and his team at In The Ditch Tow­ing Products

Ron and the Gem­ba Acad­e­my video team vis­it Fran­cis­can Health in Indi­anapo­lis, Indi­ana to learn about their lean and con­tin­u­ous improve­ment journey.

Steve vis­its Fire­blast Glob­al in Coro­na, Cal­i­for­nia where CEO Rick Egelin and his team are a year into their lean jour­ney. Rick and the team share with Steve their many suc­cess­es and some of the strug­gles they over­came to build con­tin­u­ous improve­ment momen­tum in a cus­tom man­u­fac­tur­ing company. 

Ron and the Gem­ba Acad­e­my team vis­it Zinger­man’s in Ann Arbor, Michi­gan to learn how they lever­age lean to cre­ate a world class mail order food ser­vice business.

Return­ing to Belling­ham, Wash­ing­ton, Ron trav­els to the beau­ti­ful North­west to see a Gem­ba Acad­e­my friend and total lean thinker, Paul Akers, Pres­i­dent and Founder of Fast­Cap, LLC. From the morn­ing meet­ing to the ship­ping of prod­uct at the end of the day, Paul gives Ron a free pass to look any­where around the new facil­i­ty and talk to any­one and every­one. Ron gets the full tour and meets new Fast­Cap asso­ciates as well as catch­ing up with famil­iar faces from his past visit.

In this video series we vis­it Fast­Cap in Belling­ham, Wash­ing­ton. Fast­Cap pro­vides prod­ucts and tools to accom­mo­date the pro­fes­sion­al cab­i­net mak­er and wood­work­er. Through­out this ​“Gem­ba Live” series of videos you’ll see how lean think­ing has trans­formed ALL aspects of Fast­Cap’s busi­ness includ­ing oper­a­tions, ship­ping, engi­neer­ing, sales & mar­ket­ing, cus­tomer ser­vice, account­ing, and even the bath­rooms! And last, but cer­tain­ly not least, we even pay a vis­it to Fast­Cap’s air­plane hangar to wit­ness how lean think­ing has made an impact there!

In this video series we vis­it Spe­cial­ty Sil­i­cone Fab­ri­ca­tors in Paso Rob­les, Cal­i­for­nia. SSF is a man­u­fac­tur­er of pre­ci­sion sil­i­cone com­po­nents for the med­ical device indus­try, pro­vid­ing a full range of pro­cess­ing: mold­ing, extru­sion, sheet­ing, and dip­ping. SSF’s lean efforts over the past decade have trans­formed the com­pa­ny and enable it to com­pete glob­al­ly from facil­i­ties in Cal­i­for­nia and Michigan.

In this video series we vis­it Pro CNC in Belling­ham, Wash­ing­ton. Pro CNC is an ISO 9001, AS9100 cer­ti­fied, and ITAR reg­is­tered full ser­vice provider of engi­neer­ing ser­vices, con­tract assem­bly, rapid pro­to­type 3D print­ing and ver­ti­cal­ly inte­grat­ed CNC machine shop. Through­out this ​“Gem­ba Live” series of videos you’ll see how Pro CNC places a high lev­el of impor­tance on build­ing and main­tain­ing a lean cul­ture through­out the organization.

A vis­it to Lear’s Auto­mo­tive Seat­ing Sys­tems fac­to­ry in Dun­can, South Carolina.

In this video series we vis­it NFI Indus­tries in Chi­no Hills, Cal­i­for­nia. NFI is a 3PL that got start­ed with lean a year before this episode was filmed. As you’ll see, NFI has made huge strides in a short time and, while they admit­ted­ly have much more to accom­plish, you’ll see how pas­sion­ate the NFI man­agers and asso­ciates are to improve every aspect of their business.

A vis­it to a new and very dif­fer­ent Gem­ba Live! loca­tion: Platt Tech­ni­cal High School in Mil­ford, Connecticut.

Ron vis­its Alu­minum Trail­er Com­pa­ny (ATC) — in Nap­pa­nee, Indi­ana. A major focus of this vis­it is to look at ATC’s use of Train­ing With­in Indus­try (TWI).

Ron vis­its one of the most inno­v­a­tive soft­ware devel­op­ment firms in the world, Men­lo Inno­va­tions. After read­ing Richard Sheridan’s book, Joy, Inc., we want­ed to find out how they changed the cul­ture of Men­lo Inno­va­tions by adding what they call ​“the busi­ness val­ue of joy“ in their work­place. Book Your Own Vir­tu­al Tour

Kevin Mey­er vis­its CCBRT in Dar es Salaam, Tan­za­nia. CCBRT (Com­pre­hen­sive Com­mu­ni­ty Based Reha­bil­i­ta­tion in Tan­za­nia) is a large NGO that pro­vides health ser­vices in the coun­try. Mike Gro­gan has been work­ing with them to lever­age lean and con­tin­u­ous improve­ment meth­ods to increase effi­cien­cy, effi­ca­cy, and capacity.

Ron Pereira trav­els to Mia­mi, Flori­da to vis­it the team of Tech­no Coat­ings, a divi­sion of Tech­no Aero­space, which offers a wide range of ser­vices from plat­ing to fin­ish­ing to restora­tion. Start­ed some 30 years ago from a true ​“Mom and Pop” shop, this com­pa­ny now serves a glob­al mar­ket with the help of its com­bined man­u­fac­tur­ing and fin­ish­ing expe­ri­ence, high­ly skilled work­force and pro­fes­sion­al man­age­ment team. Come along with Ron as he learns how Tech­no Aerospace’s founder and team went from resist­ing Lean to ful­ly embrac­ing it.

Ron trav­els to Canyon, Texas — home of the ​“Thun­der­ing Herd” at West Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty to see how they have tak­en Lean Six Sig­ma into the class­room and all over the campus.

Gem­ba Acad­e­my hits the road again trav­el­ing to snowy Mishawa­ka, Indi­ana to vis­it the team at Daman Prod­ucts. Daman Prod­ucts has been com­mit­ted to build­ing both prod­uct and peo­ple excel­lence for over 3 decades. Dur­ing this series you’ll meet some out­stand­ing indi­vid­u­als as Ron explores the entire facil­i­ty, includ­ing the fac­to­ry floor and front offices, and dis­cov­ers an incred­i­bly pow­er­ful ​“cul­ture of trust.”