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Category Archives: In The Chalk Circle

You can observe a lot just by watching. — Yogi Berra

5 Seconds Matter

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

I was with the factory’s kaizen leader, and we were watching an operation toward the end of the assembly line.The takt time of this particular line was on the order of 400 minutes, about one unit a day. The exact takt really doesn’t matter, it was long compared to most.
One of the Team Members needed [...]

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The Chalk Circle - Continued

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Yesterday I wrote a little about my own experience with Taiichi Ohno’s “chalk circle” as well as some stories I have gathered from others during the years.
Although the insights I got from Iwata-sensei changed my perspective, it was some years later that a few other things got solidified.
My colleagues and I had been hired as [...]

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The Chalk Circle

Monday, July 9, 2007

In “The Toyota Way” and “The Toyota Way Fieldbook” Jeffry Liker describes “standing in the chalk circle.”
This, of course, is a reference to a legendary exercise where Taiichi Ohno would stand a manager in a chalk circle drawn on the shop floor. His direction would be simple: “Watch.”
Several hours later, Ohno would return and ask [...]

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