Gemba Academy is here to help you remove the struggle from Continuous Improvement learning. Our success is measured 1:1 with our customers’ success. Our online training materials, live instructor events, and personalized coaching have helped thousands reach their improvement goals.
As organizations look to make improvements, getting all leaders and team members on the same page and moving towards a common goal is a challenge. Communication and education are key drivers in continued success, but creating and maintaining training material is an often underestimated task. Without this, many organizations fail to make the improvements that prove the success of their programs.
That’s where Gemba Academy comes in. Our continuously growing library of proven improvement training videos and materials is ready on-demand at your critical point of need. Our live instructor events can accelerate your improvement programs. Our certifications can give you the confidence that you’re on the right path to success. Finally, our virtual coaching can encourage and challenge you to make the right decisions.
No matter your industry, Gemba Academy is here to fuel your journey.
Over 1,000 companies from all over the world, from multiple industries, have successfully utilized Gemba Academy to drive organizational improvements, and empower their associates.
Using Gemba Academy training at Chevron allows us to continue learning virtually around the world. It has made Lean and Six Sigma training accessible to our teams 24/7 across 16 time zones, 23 locations and 12 countries. The platform setup allows us to reduce travel and provide a standardized and structured approach to develop our continuous improvement talent. In a world where travel is becoming a challenge, digital, on-demand training makes good sense. We leveraged the learning paths to continue the learning journey of our leaders and teams, and to provide Black Belt training. We have found this cost-effective training works best when students are paired with a coach/mentor and have good manager support for their learning journey. In addition to the Gemba Academy training, we require students to complete projects to become certified and we leverage peer learning (the buddy system) to support increasing learning/sharing. Feedback from students on the training and coaching has been highly positive.
Graciela PerezChevron
At Roche, we have a platform to place Gemba Academy learning content at the point of use, where colleagues can access key information as needed to do their work. As they self-learn on continuous improvement topics, we encourage them to use the rich content provided at Gemba Academy to discover even more. The quality of content, the clarity by which topics are covered, the variety and examples of topic usage, and sharing real world applications in industry makes Gemba Academy an essential part of our continuous improvement initiatives.
Jeff LongGlobal Operational Excellence Lead
We had a group of about two dozen of our leaders and staff attend a
Kata overview with Ron Pereira, and then followed up by selecting 5
volunteers from that initial overview to go through a 90 minute hands on
virtual Kata exercise with Ron. My eyes have really been opened to the
whole idea of setting short term focused goals for the purpose of
removing one barrier at a time.
Right now we have an important initiative to pursue very short term
market opportunities resulting from the covid19 economic disruption, and
the Kata model applies to this initiative perfectly. The model should
also be very useful in planning Kaizen events and to support 1-1
coaching activities. Our usual method in the past has been to establish
objectives going out 90 days and longer. I see Kata as more “agile”. We
definitely plan to add the Kata approach to our lean training and
execution framework.
Bret RiceDirector of Process Improvement
We have completed over 500 courses from Gemba Academy with our licensed users. We have 10-12 associates who have completed certificates with a dozen more getting close. I love the format and content of all the modules. The incremented modules allows our salary licensed holders to conduct training daily while they manage their areas. When we conduct live Lean events I usually pull in a few basic modules that support our core company Lean training materials. We also created a live Flow Simulation activity that mirrors the module provided by Gemba Academy. We are planning a value stream mapping training session with our purchasing team in a few weeks, so we are getting a lot of value in many forums.
The more exciting area is the ability to put the training to use at the real Gemba. Thus, we recently created an internal Lean Certification program. We tailored 4 very basic Lean modules to a smaller audience in a classroom setting. The targeted groups is our hourly first line supervisors in select locations in Mexico. Four courses in 30 minute segments to cover the fundamentals in 5S, Workplace Visualization, Standard Work and 7 deadly wastes. Additionally, we added 3 problem solving modules to round out their lean skill sets. Coupled with their managers, who have licenses, they are challenged to conduct 4 projects applying Lean and Problem Solving both as practitioners and leaders. We begin those activities in October and will continue through the end of the year. Once the learning and implementation is completed the associates will become Spring Window Fashions Lean Certified.
From my perspective, Gemba Academy is a valuable partner in our Lean journey!
David YannaceyDirector of Lean
Gemba Academy is a powerhouse of courses that can be learned in 10-12 minute periods and provide a great source of information, for both experienced practitioners and total beginners.
I use the courses to teach specific topics to students, colleagues, or anyone that is interested in a specific topic.
As a consultant, it allows for my audience/clients to understand the subject at hand in a brief period of time while baselining the knowledge of the topic amongst the team(s). Team alignment and understanding of what a Lean Journey looks like can be easily managed with the Gemba Academy courses.
The subject matter expertise, program tools, information, ease of access, and most importantly, the customer support provided by the Gemba Academy organization is top-notch! I am always using their teachings and new courses to stay on top of the latest information in the Lean and Six Sigma Journey.
Felix ZunigaPrinciple, Z-NERGY Consulting
Our organization is sending almost the entire engineering group through Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training with Gemba Academy. They see the benefits of the lean methodology and the benefits of having the team trained in a similar fashion. I thought that the statistics and methodology would be overwhelming but instead, it was broken down into manageable and easy-to-understand modules that made the whole experience better. The training opened my eyes to a different way of thinking and problem solving.
Mike GrieggsManufacturing Engineer, Zoll LifeVest
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The Lean Practitioner course and coaching made this education a true Lean transformation for me personally. I feel I just started this journey. There is so much for me left to learn, but every time I exchange ideas with my associates and engage with them and their ideas materialize, I feel energized to keep learning and providing support. The Gemba Academy coaching style really helped me along the way, with amazing examples from their rich experience. Thank you for sharing that with me!
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The students in my Master of Science Management: Operational Excellence class enjoyed using Gemba Academy. The students were each assigned to prepare a 15 – 20 minute presentation as their final. They were to select a module from the Gemba Academy School of Lean that interested them or one that they felt could help them in their professional or personal lives and then ‘teach’ that tool to the class. What amazed me was that out of 19 students, 17 different lean tools were chosen for their presentations. I thought that I would get more duplicate presentations than that, but it shows that Gemba Academy offers students the chance to broaden their knowledge of OE tools and methods that truly interests them. And, save for 3 or 4 presentations, the subjects chosen were ones that were not covered in my class. The students took the opportunity to expand their knowledge through their presentations using the Gemba Academy resource.
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Throughout my experience with Gemba Academy and its staff, they’ve always treated me more like a partner than a customer, and their interaction with our organization has been a benchmark for customer engagement. Since we’ve begun utilizing their Black Belt Certification program, we’ve seen areas within the organization transformed from “this is how we’ve always done it,” into Lean, efficiency-centric production environments. Gemba Academy’s expertise and first-rate content have been a major contributing factor to our organization’s success with continuous improvement.
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We are using the Gemba Academy program to help Establish a lean manufacturing culture within our manufacturing team and union workforce. Gemba Academy has developed two lean six sigma black belts, which has helped our team tremendously. The Gemba Academy training has provided essential information for the manufacturing team. Since implementing the program, we have gained time to work on process improvement because now we see the problems before they start. We have established a culture of accountability and self-awareness in internal processes. We’re now in the process of becoming lean champions. The program has helped them develop process management skills and enhanced their vision of identifying waste. The plant utilization has increased because we have reduced the number of rework hours. I recommend all companies utilize schools like Gemba academy because it will strengthen your staff. We must invest in our team to help the individual’s overall success and the company’s objectives.
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