Powering Gemba Walks with Artificial Intelligence | Follow for posts on Continuous Improvement and Innovation

Hi - I'm Ivan, an industrial engineer with 7+ years of experience in Operations Management and Kaizen.

I serve two main groups of people:

1. Executives tired of broken processes burning money - I show them how to fix it and recapture 15-30% in Muda

2. Founders in Continuous Improvement who know their stuff but can't crack LinkedIn - I show them how to turn it into a legit revenue channel

(send me a direct message for more info)

I started writing on LinkedIn in October 2023. Since then, I have been sharing actionable, educational, and entertaining content to support LinkedIn community members in their Kaizen journey. It helped me grow my audience from 9,000 to 100,000 followers in 2024.

I have been posting around:

	• Continuous Improvement
	• Lean Manufacturing
	• Growth Mindset
	• Innovation

Including insights on 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Leadership, Industry 4.0, and Problem Solving. 

Now I'm building Gemba Walk AI to make every Gemba Walk part of a learning system, where collective insights drive faster, better decisions than any single expert could achieve.

For free weekly tips, subscribe to The Kaizen Geek newsletter.

Ivan Carillo

Toyota's competitors thought Taiichi Ohno was insane. He was letting line workers stop production over a scratched fender. They stopped laughing when Toyota dominated the industry for the next 50 years. Here's what happened:

After World War II, Ohno visited auto factories in Detroit. He expected to learn from the best. Instead, he found rework areas filled with broken pieces and leftover parts. Waste everywhere, hiding in plain sight.

He went back to Toyota City and did something nobody had tried before. At every station on the assembly line, he hung a rope called the Andon cord.

The instruction was simple: 

If you see a defect pull the cord. The line slows or stops. Engineers, workers, and suppliers huddle up and fix it on the spot. Detroit thought he was crazy. "How can you build thousands of cars a day if you stop the line for every little scratch?"

Ohno's answer was simple: 

A scratched fender is an early warning that a piece of equipment is failing. Fix the scratch today, and you prevent 500 defective fenders next week. Ignore it, and you're building rework areas just like Detroit.

That's the difference between firefighting and fire prevention.

Most operations leaders I talk to are stuck in firefighting mode. They walk past small defects every day because the line has to keep moving.

But those small defects are talking to you. They're telling you exactly where your next big quality failure will come from.

How many "minor" defects is your team walking past today that are actually early warning signs?

Kaizen vs. Innovation
 
Who wins?
 
There are two types of improvement:
 
Kaizen → Continuous improvements through ongoing effort. Involves everyone. Requires little money but sustained work.
 
Innovation → Dramatic improvements from large investments in new technology. Involves select champions. Requires big money but less sustained effort.
 
You need both. But here's how to proceed if you are forced to choose between the two.
 
 Choose Innovation when:
 
-you need dramatic breakthroughs to compete
-technology has fundamentally changed
-current processes are broken beyond repair
-you're entering new markets
-you must leapfrog competitors
 
Choose Kaizen when:
 
-you need sustainable competitive advantage
-you want to build organizational capability
-current processes work but need improvement
-you want everyone engaged in improvement
-you need to protect gains from innovation
 
Innovation creates the breakthrough.
Kaizen sustains it.
 
Without continuous improvement, every innovation you invest in will slowly erode back to zero.

A split illustration comparing Kaizen and Innovation. On the left, a hand-drawn sketch of a SIM card tray with a notched SIM card — labeled "Poka Yoke" — representing Kaizen's approach of error-proofing and incremental improvement. On the right, four SIM card generations shown in descending size order: Full Size, Mini SIM, Nano SIM, and eSIM — representing Innovation's leaps to entirely new solutions. Below both panels, the caption reads: "Kaizen gets you better, Innovation gets you different. You need both to thrive."

Taiichi Ohno said: "Where there is no standard, there can be no Kaizen."
 
He could have kept going:
 
 
Where there is no Kaizen, there can be no Innovation.
 
Standards don't kill creativity.
They create the foundation that makes creativity possible.

A pencil-drawn diagram of a steep incline with a ball marked "P" (representing a Process) at four progressive positions moving uphill. Each upward leap is labeled "kaizen" with a curved arrow. Between each position, a wedge or chock block under the ball — labeled "Standardization!" — prevents it from sliding back down. At the bottom left, a ball with no wedge shows the process rolling backward, labeled "process," illustrating regression without standardization. Below the illustration, the caption reads: "Where there is no standard, there can be no Kaizen."

"We don't have time for improvement."
This is the biggest lie in business.
You have time for:
 
-fixing the same problems every week
-working around broken processes
-apologizing to angry customers
-replacing burned-out employees
-losing market share to competitors
 
But not 30 mins a day to move forward?
 
Organizations that say they can't afford Kaizen are already spending a third of their time on the consequences of not improving.
 
They're paying the price. Just not getting the benefits.
 
Real Kaizen can fit inside the workday you already have:
 
→ 3-minute fixes at the point of work
→ 15-minute daily stand-ups
→ 1-hour weekly problem-solving sessions
→ Half-day monthly deep dives
 
Inaction is the real time waster.

Most companies are stuck on one speed. That's why they never reach Operational Excellence. The Japanese solved this decades ago with 3 concepts most leaders still confuse:
 
Kaizen - Kaikaku - Kakushin
 
Most leaders treat them as buzzwords. A few use one of them well. Very few uses all three in the right way, at the right time.
 
Here's what they mean (and why you need all three):
 
1/ Kaizen → Change for the better
 
Small, continuous improvements. Every day. Everyone involved.
 
→ Low cost, low risk
→ Driven by frontline workers and managers alike
→ Builds lasting habits, not one-time fixes
 
Example: Adjusting a workstation layout to cut motion by 10%.
 
Kaizen doesn't create breakthroughs.
It sustains them, and compounds gains over time.
 
2/ Kaikaku → Radical change
 
A deliberate, large-scale transformation of a process or system.
 
→ Top-down decision driven by urgency or opportunity
→ Higher investment and risk
→ Rewires how an entire system operates
 
Example: Redesigning your entire production flow to implement pull-based manufacturing.
 
Kaikaku creates a new baseline.
Kaizen then locks it in.
 
3/ Kakushin → Innovation
 
Reinvention. Creating something that didn't exist before.
 
→ Highest risk, highest potential reward
→ Disrupts markets or creates entirely new ones
→ Requires courage to abandon what's working
 
Example: Building an AI-powered process that makes the old one obsolete.
 
Kakushin opens new territory.
The other two make sure you can hold it.

Hand-drawn graph on aged paper showing three levels of process improvement over time: Kaizen as small incremental steps, Kaikaku as a steeper staircase of radical change, and Kakushin as an exponential curve representing innovation and reinvention.

Accountability and blame cannot coexist.
 
Pick one.
 
The most common tendency in traditional management?
 
Falling into the blame trap.
 
Blame Culture
 
→ Problems hide
→ Mistakes get covered up
→ People protect themselves
→ Learning stops
→ Improvement dies
 
Accountability Culture
 
→ Problems surface quickly
→ Mistakes become lessons
→ People own their commitments
→ Learning accelerates
→ Improvement thrives

Blame asks: "Who caused this?"
Accountability asks: "What caused this?"

All the difference in one word.

Hand-written text on a beige paper background reading "Blame the people" with "the people" crossed out in red, replaced below with "the process" written in red — transforming the phrase into "Blame the process."

Visual Management changes how people think, not just what they see. (here's what most leaders miss about ↓)
 
Kaizen is 90% Mindset, 10% Tools.
 
But what is the most powerful tool in your toolbox?
 
Well, your eyes.

We humans are visual creatures - our eyes take in information very quickly.

Visual Management is used to 

+share information 
+set new work standards 
+provide workflow transparency 

Key Steps: 

1/ Make information visible and accessible 
2/ Create visual cues that can be understood quickly 
3/ Highlight abnormal conditions that need attention 
4/ Enable teams to see project status and progress 

Some Examples: 

+Dashboards that display KPIs 
+Kanban Cards to limit work-in-progress 
+Gantt Charts to illustrate project timelines 
+Andon Systems that signal problems 
+Color-Coding systems for quick identification 

Another example is in this photo!

Remember: 

Humans process visual information much faster than text.

A clean indoor parking garage with three yellow-lined parking spaces on a polished concrete floor. A red Tesla Model 3 occupies the left space, a silver Ford F-150 truck occupies the right space, and the middle space is empty — visually demonstrating visual management through floor marking that makes normal (occupied) and abnormal (empty) conditions immediately obvious at a glance.

21 sentences every kaizen leader must hear at least once (read my fav ones below ↓)


When I read books, especially about Kaizen, I always look for something that will stay with me. I end up writing down the things that strike me most in my journal. Here are the 4 sentences in the list that I believe are most powerful (and why):

1/ Gemba never lies

I've seen leaders make terrible decisions because they trusted Excel sheets over their own eyes. The problems that cost us millions are often visible on the shopfloor, but nobody bother to look. Reports tell you what people want you to know. Gemba tells you what's actually happening. I think the moment you stop walking the floor is the moment you lose touch with reality. Your operators won't lie to you if you show up regularly, ask good questions, and actually listen to their answers.

2/ Without psychological safety, Kaizen dies.

I've watched brilliant Kaizen programs collapse because people were terrified to speak up. Companies that blame individuals for systemic problems get exactly what they deserve. Silence. Workers hide defects, skip reporting near-misses, and watch waste happen rather than risk looking stupid or getting punished. I think this is why most Kaizen initiatives fail within a year. You can't improve what people won't talk about, and people won't talk about problems in a culture of fear.

3/ People who do the work are the experts

I learned this the hard way early in my career when I implemented a Kaizen idea. The operators supported it, then immediately went back to their old method the moment I left. Every time I've ignored frontline expertise, I've wasted time and money solving the wrong problem. I think we underestimate how much knowledge lives in the hands and muscle memory of people who do the same task hundreds of times daily.

4/ Kaizen culture doesn't support strategy. Kaizen culture is strategy.

I spent years thinking CI was something that helped execute our "real" strategy. I was wrong. Companies with a strong Kaizen culture adapt faster, survive disruptions better, and outperform competitors with superior strategic plans. I think this is the principle most executives miss. Your competitors can copy your products in months, but they can't copy a culture where thousands of people solve problems every single day.

P.S. What's your fav one in the list? Anything else to add here?

21 Sentences Every Kaizen Leader Must Hear At Least Once — A numbered list of Kaizen leadership principles on a textured beige background, including: Gemba never lies; Challenge the status quo, always; Everyone must own improvement; Problems are treasures, not threats; Plan, Do, Check, Act—repeat forever; Data tells you what, people tell you why; Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication; People who do the work ARE the experts; Speed and quality are not opposing forces; Without psychological safety, Kaizen dies; Expertise isn't about having all the answers; Standardization comes BEFORE improvement; Leaders must resist the urge to jump to solutions; Kaizen doesn't support strategy, Kaizen IS strategy; If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught; The master knows when to step aside and let others grow; KPIs can improve even as the culture declines, watch both; Creating a Kaizen culture cannot be separated from sustaining it; and others.

Master Continuous Improvement to keep your business ahead in 2026. 

(check this out ↓)

1/ PDCA

PDCA is the backbone of Lean problem-solving.

Four steps. Methodical. Repeatable.

Use it for:

+Problem solving
+Quality management
+New product development
+Process improvement

It stops you from jumping to solutions before you understand the problem.

2/ Value Stream Mapping

VSM shows every step in your operation from raw material to customer delivery. It exposes waste hiding in plain sight.

Five steps to build one:

+Pick a product family
+Assemble the VSM team
+Calculate customer demand
+Map the material flow
+Map the information flow

3/ Kanban

Toyota invented Kanban in the 1950s to control production flow.

Today it manages work across manufacturing, logistics, and software.

A Kanban board has three elements: columns, cards, and swimlanes. 

Move work faster, cut waste, and see bottlenecks before they cost you.

4/ 5S

5S turns a chaotic workspace into a clean, standardized one.
Five steps, all starting with S:
Sort (Seiri) — Remove what you don't need
Set In Order (Seiton) — A place for everything
Shine (Seiso) — Clean and inspect daily
Standardize (Seiketsu) — Lock in the new normal
Sustain (Shitsuke) — Make it a habit

5/ Poka Yoke

Poka-Yoke means "mistake-proofing" in Japanese.

It builds error prevention directly into the process, so operators can't make the wrong move even if they try.

6/ Gemba Walk

Data tells you what happened. Gemba shows you why.

"Gemba" means "actual place" in Japanese.

Leave your desk. Walk the floor. See the work firsthand.

***
Manufacturing teams struggle to capture critical floor insights. 

That's why we are building gembawalk.ai. 

Gemba Walk AI digitalizes your observation process, so you can ensure your CI efforts deliver measurable results. 

Join the waitlist now: gembawalk.ai 

(and get also our checklists for free)

Fast, Cheap, Good - Pick two.
 
(trade-offs are inevitable)
 
"We need it fast, under budget, and perfect."
 
Everyone knows it's impossible. Nobody says it.
 
Three months later:
 
The project is late, over budget, or broken.
 
 You can't have everything.
 
The worst project managers?
 
They promise all three.
Then they blame the team when it doesn't work.
 
PS. Do you think the project management triangle is still relevant?

Before you launch your next improvement initiative, ask yourself one question:
 
Have I stabilized the current process first?
 
Improvement efforts layered on top of unstable processes produce unstable results.
 
The gains look real for a few time, then quietly disappear.
 
Standardize. Document. Train. Hold the standard.
 
Then improve.

Hand-drawn diagram showing three targets representing process states. Top-left: an 'Unstable Process' target with dots scattered across all rings. A solid arrow labeled 'What most teams try' points directly to the top-right 'Stabilized Process' target, where dots are clustered near the center but still spread out. A dashed arrow with an X crosses out this direct path. Instead, a second path goes downward to a 'Stabilized + Improved' target at the bottom, where all dots are tightly grouped in the bullseye, then curves up to the Stabilized Process — labeled 'What actually works.' The message: don't try to improve an unstable process directly — first stabilize it, then improve.

Stop calling them solutions. They are countermeasures. Here's why it changes how you think: (not a wordplay at all)
 
 
"Solution" means the problem is solved.
 
Done.
Move on.
Forget about it.
 
"Countermeasure" means you countered today's conditions.
 
Tomorrow brings new ones.
Stay sharp.
 
Watch what happens when teams use each word:
 
SOLUTION MINDSET
 
→ Fix it once
→ Walk away
→ Blame someone when it breaks again
→ Resist going back to look
 
COUNTERMEASURE MINDSET
 
→ Counter what you see now
→ Watch how it holds
→ Expect things to shift
→ Plan your next adjustment
 
One word builds complacency. The other builds discipline.

A pencil sketch-style portrait of Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System, depicted as a middle-aged Japanese man in a collared shirt and tie, with a factory floor illustrated in the background. Beside his portrait is a quote that reads: "Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month's manual should be out of date." — Taiichi Ohno.

Let's be honest. Your endless meetings are a waste of time. Here's how Kaizen organizations turn 10 minutes into millions of dollars in savings:
 
Traditional meetings:
 
→ 30-60 minutes of opinions
→ Problems hidden in PowerPoints
→ Action items that die in email
→ Same issues next week
 
Daily huddles:
 
→ 10 minutes standing up
→ Problems visible on boards
→ Ownership assigned immediately
→ Issues escalate or resolve in 24 hours
 
We implemented this at a 300-person manufacturing facility.
 
Week 1: "We don't have time for daily meetings"
Week 4: "How did we survive without this?"
 
Here's the structure that made a difference:
 
Tier 1 → Frontline - Daily
 
+What broke?
+Who needs help?
+What's blocking us?
 
Tier 2 → Supervisors - Daily
 
+What can't frontline solve?
+Where do we need support?
 
Tier 3 → Managers - 2x week
 
+What patterns are emerging?
+What resources needed?
 
Tier 4 → Leaders - Weekly
 
+What strategic issues surfaced?
+What investments required?
 
Results after 90 days:
 
Problems solved → 73% faster
Employee engagement → +34%
Productivity → +22%
 
P.S. Your teams don't need longer meetings.
 
They need better systems.

A pencil sketch illustration of five businessmen in suits sitting around a conference table, reacting in shock and alarm as a dark, tentacled monster emerges from a swirling vortex at the center of the table. Money bills float through the air. Financial charts and graphs — showing upward trends, bar charts, and pie charts — cover the whiteboards on the surrounding walls. The creature has multiple eyes and dripping tentacles, cracking through the table's surface, symbolizing a hidden threat consuming organizational resources or time during a business meeting.

The operator put all his setup tools on a cart instead of walking back and forth. 

Setup time down 15%. 

No engineers. No capital. No approval process.

That's Kaizen.

A pencil-sketch illustration of a maintenance worker in work clothes and a beanie hat standing in an industrial workshop. To his left, a rolling tool cart sits in front of a pegboard wall displaying organized hand tools including wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, and gauges. A toolbox rests on the floor beside the cart. To his right, a large metal lathe machine occupies the background. The setting evokes a factory floor with exposed brick walls and overhead pipes.

Management has 2 functions: maintenance and improvement. The higher you go in management, the more time you spend on improvement. (read this ↓)
 
There are two types of improvement:
 
Kaizen → Continuous improvements through ongoing effort. Involves everyone. Requires little money but sustained work.
 
Innovation → Dramatic improvements from large investments in new technology. Involves select champions. Requires big money but less sustained effort.
 
But there's one thing most managers misunderstand:
 
Kaizen creates something innovation alone cannot, 
i.e. lasting change that compounds over time.
 
Innovation alone:
 
- Big improvement spike
- Gradual decline as gains erode
- New problems emerge
- Process isn't maintained
- Another innovation creates another spike
- Another decline follows
 
Kaizen plus innovation:
 
- Innovation creates the breakthrough
- Kaizen sustains and enhances the gains
- Next innovation starts from a higher baseline
- Creates a staircase pattern upward
- Competitors can't catch up
 
You need both.
 
Innovation creates the breakthrough.
Kaizen sustains it.
 
Without CI, every innovation you invest in will slowly erode back to zero.

Traditional management follows Plan-Do-Check-Finish. After checking results, they stop. Here is why their improvements don't last:
 
Companies preach the use of PDCA, but they are used to skip the Act phase.
 
No standardization. No next cycle. Improvement quietly dies.
 
Sound familiar?
 
1/ Team builds a detailed improvement plan
2/ Implementation starts with real enthusiasm 
3/ Results get measured once, maybe twice
4/ The new process gets abandoned when the next crisis hits
 
Real PDCA never stops spinning:
 
Plan → Set the target and action steps
Do → Run the pilot on a small scale first
Check → Measure results against expectations
Act → Standardize what works, kill what doesn't
 
In a Kaizen culture, every completed cycle starts the next one.
 
That's how small gains compound into advantages your competitors can't copy.

A site operations lead fixed a morale crisis in 45 days. His total investment: 3 minutes per day. Zero dollars. Here's the story:
 
 
A manufacturing plant had a turnover problem nobody could explain. The plant manager brought in an HR consultant to interview employees at every level.
 
The complaints weren't what he expected.
 
→ "When I walk past the site lead, he doesn't look me in the eye."
→ "I've never seen him smile."
→ "I sacrificed time with my children for that task. Not a single thank you."
→ "I was presenting to leadership. Every one of them was texting."
 
No one asked for more money.
 
They wanted to be seen. They wanted to know their work mattered.
 
The fix took no budget, no program rollout.
 
 The plant manager committed to 3 minutes a day:
 
→ Greeting people by name on the floor
→ Asking one person about their weekend
→ Saying "thank you" when someone delivered work
→ Putting his phone away in meetings
 
3 minutes of respect and consideration each day.
 
That's it.
 
45 days later, morale scores had jumped. Attrition slowed. The floor felt different.
 
People don't leave bad companies. They leave leaders who make them feel invisible.
 
PS. When was the last time you walked the floor and thanked someone by name?

Do you know what the clearest expression of leadership contradiction is? Executives who say they want a Continuous Improvement culture, but then punish people who report problems. (read this ↓) 
 
Some executives say they want to build a Kaizen culture.
Then they punish people for surfacing problems.
 
Let me be clear about this:
 
You can't build a Kaizen culture in the dark.
 
Kaizen organizations understand that
problems aren't threats. They're treasures.
 
You should strive for true transparency.
 
It means:
 
→ Making problems intentionally visible
→ Celebrating when problems are surfaced
→ Creating systems where hiding issues is harder than solving them
 
Remember:
 
Secrecy is the enemy of excellence.
 
P.S. How visible are problems in your organization?
 
Can people surface issues without fear?

Hand-drawn sketch of an iceberg. The visible tip above water is labeled "What executives see." The massive submerged portion is filled with operational problems: waste, delays, defects, conflict, rework, inefficiency, miscommunication, technical debt, bottlenecks, poor planning, manual work, overproduction, inventory, transportation, motion, waiting, non-value-add, quality issues, misalignment, burnout, bugs, broken processes, silos, lack of transparency, poor alignment, cultural friction, bureaucracy, duplication of effort, hidden costs, missed deadlines, and systemic flaws.

The biggest lie in manufacturing improvement:
 
"Kaizen only works in Japan."
 
Companies in the US, Europe, and beyond have proven the opposite for decades.
 
Culture affects how you implement Kaizen, not whether it works.
 
The principles are universal because they're just good management:
 
+observe the process 
+involve the people closest to the work
+make small improvements every day
 
…and never stop.
 
That's Kaizen.

***
Manufacturing teams struggle to capture critical floor insights. 

That's why we are building gembawalk.ai. 

Gemba Walk AI digitalizes your observation process, so you can ensure your CI efforts deliver measurable results. 

Join the waitlist now: gembawalk.ai

We are launching in April for a limited time before we waitlist again.

A minimalist Japanese-style illustration featuring a large red circle (evoking the rising sun) against a cream, textured background. In the foreground, black silhouettes depict a traditional arched bridge with a figure standing on it, a pagoda-style structure with a person nearby, and a windswept bonsai tree to the right. Two cranes fly across the upper portion of the red circle. The overall aesthetic evokes vintage Japanese poster art.

I have been posting here about Kaizen since October 2023. Translated in numbers that's 971 posts and 100M+ impressions only from this profile. I did it mainly because I love talking about it, and here is my take on Kaizen:
 
 
Kaizen means more than Continuous Improvement. 
  
Kai means "change, remove the old with new." Zen means "good." Not good as in "effective," but good as in the moral sense of being right. The opposite of Zen is not just bad; it's Evil.
  
This matters for how you lead improvement. I've seen too many initiatives that made the numbers better but people's lives worse. These were not in line with the true meaning of Zen.

We often forget that improvement should make our people more capable, businesses should have positive impact, and change should increase human potential.

Making nothing but money isn't great business. And driving change is not as effective if you don't live by Kaizen.

 Here are 5 things to help you build a true Kaizen mindset in 2026:
 
1/ Own problems you didn't create
 
Most people see a problem and think "Not my job" or "I didn't break it." 
 
Stop waiting for someone else to fix what's broken. Someone before me said it better: "Just because something's not your fault doesn't mean it's not your responsibility." 
 
When you see waste, it's yours to address. You don't fix everything yourself. But you stop walking past problems like they're invisible.
 
2/ Question everything you do more than once
 
If you've done the same task twice the same way, ask yourself: "Could this be better?"
 
When you catch yourself saying "That's just how we do it," you've stopped thinking. The moment something becomes routine is when you should examine it.
 
3/ Get curious about failure
 
When something goes wrong, do you look for who to blame or what to learn?
 
Train yourself to ask "Why did this happen?" before "Whose fault is this?" Treat every defect, delay, and complaint as data. See failure as feedback, not someone's mistake to punish.
 
4/ Think in experiments, not solutions
 
Kaizen practitioners are comfortable being wrong because being wrong teaches you something.
 
Start saying "Let's try this and see what happens." Wrong turns teach you where the dead ends are. Run small tests. Fail fast. Learn faster. 
 
5/ Listen to the people doing the work
 
The operator who runs the machine every day knows more about it than you do. Believe this. Ask their opinion before you share yours. Listen to understand, not to respond. Frontline knowledge beats management theories.
 
***
P.S. Kaizen feels overwhelming when you don't know where to start or what to focus on.
 
I created The Kaizen Geek, my newsletter delivering bite-sized, actionable improvement strategies every week. 
 
Join now: ivancarillo.com

I spent 14 years at giants like Chrysler and Unilever.

And one thing drove me crazy:

We were running million-dollar improvement programs on $15 Excel sheets.

(It made zero sense)

We had smart operators. We had motivated leaders. We had the ideas.

But we had nowhere to put them.

1. Ideas got lost in email threads.
2. Feedback loops broke down.
3. Motivation faded because nobody saw results.

So I co-founded Leansuite.

Not because I "love" software. But because I hated the admin grind.

Here is the breakdown of what we actually built:

1. The Suggestion Module: Turns frontline ideas into validated savings.
2. The Digital SOPs: No more dusty binders. We track execution in real-time.
3. The LMS: Ensures every operator is actually certified for their station.
4. The "Tribal Knowledge" Bank: We capture the best tricks and share them globally.

We are trusted by leaders like Whirlpool to validate millions in savings.

(Ask me about that case study, the numbers are wild)

So...

Stop managing your future with tools from the 1990s.

If you are tired of the spreadsheet chaos, let's talk.

2 ways to engage:

1. DM me "DEMO" to see the platform.
2. Book a chat here: https://calendly.com/angadsingh63/discovery-call

Let's build a system that listens.

Cheers!
Angad

Angad S.

You know the names of the 6 founders of Lean. But you are completely missing their actual philosophy.

We copy their tools every day while sometimes ignoring their thinking
After 14 years on the floor, I have noticed a massive gap. 

Most practitioners know the history, but very few understand what these leaders were actually saying.

Here is what most people get wrong about the foundation of Lean:

1. W. Edwards Deming 
The Myth: He was just a quality consultant.
The Reality: He was trying to tell you that your entire management system was fundamentally broken.

2. Taiichi Ohno 
The Myth: He just gave us a checklist for eliminating waste.
The Reality: He wanted you to aggressively question every single second between receiving an order and collecting the cash.

3. Masaaki Imai 
The Myth: He invented the quarterly "Kaizen Event."
The Reality: He built a philosophy of daily improvement for everyone, not a 3-day workshop for a select few.

4. Shigeo Shingo 
The Myth: He created error-proofing forms and checklists.
The Reality: He wanted you to engineer the process so making a mistake was physically impossible.

5. James Womack 
The Myth: He told us to start by cutting waste.
The Reality: He told us to define value first. Everything that doesn't deliver that exact value is waste.

6. Joseph Juran 
The Myth: He wanted you to count and chart your defects.
The Reality: He wanted you to calculate what bad quality costs and present it to leadership as a financial problem.

The tools these men created are everywhere. The thinking behind them is far less common.

(Repost if you prefer Lean Thinking over Lean Tools)

P.S. Which of these 6 philosophies is your plant struggling to understand the most right now? Be honest.

Angad Singh

Changing the way you think about Lean & Continuous Improvement | Co-founder @ LeanSuite | Software trusted by fortune 500s to implement Continuous Improvement Culture | Follow me for daily Lean & CI insights

Stop trying to be the main Problem Solver for your plant.
The best leaders build teams that fixes the shop floor.

In my career, I realized I failed multiple times,
not because I lacked Lean knowledge,
but because I failed to stop doing
the wrong things

This list is not a criticism. It is a mirror.
And it is one I wish someone had
held up for me much earlier
in my career.

Operational excellence has two layers.

One is visible.

The other determines everything.

Most plants invest heavily in the outer layer:

Dashboards.
5S audits.
Kaizen events.
Training sessions.
Lean tools.

Important? Yes.

Sufficient? No.

Performance does not come from tools.

It comes from behavior.

Do leaders follow through?
Are standards enforced daily?
Are problems addressed immediately?
Is accountability clear?
Are deviations tolerated?

Tools create structure.

Discipline creates results.

Two plants can run the same Lean tools.

Only one sustains performance.

The difference is rarely technical.

It is behavioral.

Look at your operation.

Which layer gets more attention?

Japanese plants lose 2 hours per month to breakdowns. US plants? 40+ hours.

(The gap is not what you think)

It's not about newer equipment. It's not about more money.

It's about Total Productive Maintenance.

Most US plants think TPM is about fixing broken machines faster. 

They are missing 7 out of 8 pillars.

The 8 Pillars Japanese plants actually use:

→ Autonomous Maintenance 
The Reality: Operators own daily equipment care. They clean, oil, and inspect. No waiting for maintenance tickets.

→ Planned Maintenance 
The Reality: Fix it before it breaks. Data drives scheduling, not emergency calls at 2 AM.

→ Focused Improvement 
The Reality: Cross-functional teams kill root causes. Stop the same bearing failure 10 times running.

→ Training & Development 
The Reality: Operators become equipment experts. Not just button-pushers waiting for problems.

→ Early Equipment Management 
The Reality: Design out failures before startup. No more "we'll debug it in production."

→ Quality Maintenance 
The Reality: Zero-defect machine conditions. Your process variation starts with maintenance gaps.

→ Office TPM 
The Reality: Attack admin waste too. Work order delays, planning bottlenecks, scheduling chaos.

→ Safety, Health & Environment 
The Reality: The foundation that makes everything else possible.

The foundation under all 8 pillars:

5S + Workplace Discipline.

(Without this, every pillar crumbles)

The mindset shift that changes everything:

Average plants: "Maintenance is a cost center."
World-class plants: "Maintenance is competitive advantage."

That 38 hour monthly gap?

→ 456 hours per year of lost production
→ $2.3 million in opportunity cost (at $5,000/hour)
→ Your competitor shipping while you're fixing

Your TPM maturity determines your market position.

The question is not whether you can afford TPM.

The question is whether you can afford falling 38 hours behind every month.

---

If this breakdown opened your eyes to TPM, repost it.

Your maintenance team is waiting for this conversation.

undefined undefined

Co-Founder

Process Manager, Business Operations

Manufacturing Excellence Manager, World Class Manufacturing

Chrysler Group LLC

English

Hindi

Only 5% of what happens on your shop floor actually makes you money. 

The rest is just expensive noise.

(And most companies are busy optimizing the noise)

Every activity on your floor falls into one of three buckets. If you don't define them, you end up perfecting the wrong things.

Here is the reality of your operation:

1. Value-Added (The Work)

What it is: Changing the form, fit, or function of the product.
The Test: Would the customer willingly pay for this?
The Action: Protect it.

2. Non-Value-Added (The Waste)

What it is: Moving parts, searching for tools, waiting for approvals.
The Test: Does it consume time but add zero value?
The Action: Kill it ruthlessly.

3. Necessary Non-Value-Added (The Tax)

What it is: Safety inspections, compliance, machine warm-ups.
The Test: Does it add zero value, but you can't remove it today?
The Action: Minimize it.

Here is the uncomfortable truth about continuous improvement: Most teams spend their time trying to make the red bucket more efficient.

Faster waste is still waste.

Making a bad process 10% faster just means you are burning cash 10% quicker.

Walk one process this week. Stop asking: "How do we do this faster?" Start asking: "Would the customer pay for this?"

A Gemba walk without the right questions is just a walk.

(what managers usually do is they look, they nod and they leave.)

Nothing changes. Not because they don't care, but because they ask the wrong things.

Most Gemba walks just collect symptoms. You need to diagnose the disease.

Here are the 4 questions that turn a factory tour into a real diagnosis:

1. "What is the standard for this step?" 

The Reality: If the operator hesitates, the standard doesn't exist.
The Lesson: It might be on a PowerPoint in your office, but if it isn't alive on the floor, it is useless.

2. "What frustrates you most about this process?" 

The Reality: The operator fights this friction every single shift, but nobody ever asks them about it.
The Lesson: Management meetings produce slides. Operators produce solutions.

3. "What happens when this step fails?" 

The Reality: This reveals how fragile your operation actually is.
The Lesson: If the answer is "we figure it out," you don't have a process. You have controlled chaos.

4. "How do you know if you are winning today?" 

The Reality: If they can't answer this immediately, they are working blind.
The Lesson: No visible target means they are just showing up and hoping for the best.

The floor never lies. But it only talks to people who ask the right questions.

Your operators already know exactly what is broken. They are just waiting for someone to ask.

Your Kanban board looks great on the wall. 

But if you ask your team how they decided on the number of cards, the whole system falls apart.

The bins are labeled. The cards are color-coded. 

The layout is clean. But when you ask, "Why do we have exactly six bins?" 

The answer is usually: "Because that is what fits on the shelf" or "We have always had six."

That is not a Pull System. That is just organized guessing.

Here is what happens when you run Kanban without the math:

1. Too Many Cards (The Hidden Waste)
The Reality: You are sitting on piles of overproduction that you just dressed up as "inventory."
The Result: Tied-up cash and wasted floor space.

2. Too Few Cards (The Starving Line) 
The Reality: The buffer isn't built for actual variation.
The Result: The line starves every other shift, creating chaos and firefighting.

3. Calculated Pull (The Math) 
The Reality: You use the actual 4-variable formula: Daily Demand, Lead Time, Safety Factor, and Bin Quantity.
The Result: You hold exactly what you need. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Kanban is supposed to be precise math. It is not a gut feeling.

Go pick one Kanban loop on your floor today. Run the numbers. 

If the math doesn't match what is sitting on the shelf right now, that is your next improvement project.

If your mistake-proofing strategy is just buzzers and red lights...

...you don't have mistake-proofing.
You have a notification system.

There's a big difference between Poka-Yoke
that warns you and Poka-Yoke that stops you.

A physical pin that won't let the part load backwards?
That's a control. The error is impossible.

A light that blinks when torque is off?
That's a warning. The error already happened.

Both have a place.
But too many plants lean on warnings
and wonder why defects keep slipping through.

Warnings depend on someone paying attention.
Controls don't.

Simple question to ask yourself:

"Can I design the error out or am I just flagging it?"

If you can eliminate it, eliminate it.
If you can't, then alert for it.

That's the hierarchy. Control first. Warning second.

I put together a cheat sheet breaking down both categories with real examples.

Save it. Send it to your quality team.

♻️ Repost if your plant needs fewer alarms and more solutions.

If your Plant Manager is solving a shop floor problem, your escalation system is completely broken.

(A Daily Management System is a problem solving filter, not a meeting schedule)

Every issue must be handled at the lowest level that has the authority and resources to solve it. But in most plants, every minor hiccup lands right on the Plant Manager’s desk.

Here is how world class plants filter their problems instead:

Tier 1: The Shift Huddle 

Who: Operators + Line Leader (10 minutes).
What: Start of shift. Safety. Quality. Downtime.
The Reality: 80% of daily problems should die right here.

Tier 2: The Department Walk 

Who: Supervisors + Team Leads.
What: What didn't get resolved at the line? 
Who needs resources to unblock it?
The Reality: This is where the friction gets removed before it becomes a fire.

Tier 3: The Plant Review 

Who: Plant Manager + Department Heads (15 minutes).
The Reality: This meeting should be incredibly boring.

Here is the signal nobody talks about:
When problems consistently reach Tier 3, it doesn't mean your Plant 
Manager is a hero for solving them. It means the tiers below them are not working.

Build the filter. Stop bypassing the chain.

If you want to get out of the daily firefighting cycle, you have to follow this exact progression.

Most plants try to skip straight to the end and FAIL

We launch Lean programs. We run Kaizen events. 
We expect massive results. But we have zero standard work in place.

You are trying to optimize a process that was never stabilized to begin with. 

You cannot Kaizen your way out of a fire.

Here is the reality of the Lean Maturity Funnel:

Stage 1: Chaos 

What it is: Firefighting is the full-time job. No systems.
The Reality: You cannot improve what you cannot control. Just survive and write the first standard.

Stage 2: Standardize 

What it is: SOPs are written. Visual management is up.
The Reality: You fight a daily battle just to get consistency.

Stage 3: Stabilize 

What it is: Root cause thinking replaces blame.
The Reality: Problems actually get solved instead of repeated.

Stage 4: Optimize 

What it is: Targeted Kaizen events. Waste gets eliminated.
The Reality: This is the stage everyone tries to jump to first.

Stage 5: Sustain & Scale 

What it is: CI is the culture, not a project.
The Reality: People improve the process without being asked.

Here is what I have seen in 14 years: Plants love jumping straight to Stage 4.

But without standard work? Without stability? They are

A production target built in a boardroom will always die on the shop floor.

It's not that people don't want to take up challenge,
It dies because it was based on theoretical capacity, not shop-floor reality. 

This is the fatal flaw of top-down goal setting in manufacturing.

Leadership looks at the machine specs. They calculate a perfect 85% OEE. 

They hand down a target of 1,000 units a shift.

But they don't know the raw material jams. They don't know the fixture sticks. 

They don't know the overhead crane takes 15 minutes to arrive.

If you want real ownership, you cannot just dictate the number. In world-class plants, they use a bottom-up process called Catchball.

Here is the difference between a mandate and a negotiation:

1. The Command (Top-Down) 

The Plant Manager dictates: "We need 1,000 units today."
The Floor's Reaction: "Good luck with that. Machine 3 has been limping all week."
The Result: Missed targets, hidden data, and finger-pointing at the end of the month.

2. The Conversation (Catchball) 

Management says: "We need 1,000 units. What is stopping us from hitting that?"
The Floor's Reaction: "We can hit 1,000, but only if maintenance fixes the feed jam, and purchasing stops buying the cheap abrasives."
The Result: The bottlenecks are exposed and assigned before the shift even starts.

Catchball is not a meeting to lower the standard. It is a negotiation to expose the constraints.

When the team running the machines is allowed to push back on a target, the goal doesn't get weaker. The goal gets sharper.

If management dictates the target, management owns the failure. If the floor helps build the target, the floor owns the success.

You can use every Lean tool on the market, 
but if you skip the 5 Core Principles, 
your plant is just running organized chaos.

So many times this same mistake is repeated...

I have walked into plants that had every tool you can name. 
5S tape on every floor. Kanban cards on every rack. 
A3s in every drawer. And the shop floor still ran completely out of control.

Why? 

Because tools do not make you Lean. Thinking makes you Lean.

Most plants skip straight to the tools.

They chase faster cycle times without defining what the customer actually values. They run Kaizen events on steps that shouldn't even exist.

The tools aren't the problem. The sequence is.

Here is the exact sequence every tool is actually supposed to serve:

1. Define Value 
The Goal: Figure out exactly what the customer is willing to pay for. Everything else is waste.

2. Map the Value Stream 
The Goal: Map the steps. 
Find out where that waste actually lives before you start changing things.

3. Create Flow 
The Goal: Remove the bottlenecks. 
Make the product move without waiting, batching, or stopping.

4. Establish Pull 
The Goal: Stop pushing inventory. 
Only make the next part when the downstream step actually asks for it.

5. Pursue Perfection 
The Goal: You are never done. 
You loop right back to step one and redefine value all over again.

If you don't have this foundation, your visual management boards are just expensive wallpaper.

Value comes first. Then map. Then flow. Then pull. Then perfection.

Your newest machine will fail more in the first 3 months than in the next 3 years.

(Sounds backwards, but it is the reality of the floor)

Most Plant Managers treat every breakdown like random bad luck. Reliability Engineers see the pattern.

If you are scheduling the exact same PM on a 2-month-old pump 
and a 20-year-old pump...

You are managing chaos, not reliability.

Every machine goes through three predictable phases. 
It is called the Bathtub Curve.

Here is how you actually manage the lifecycle:

Phase 1: Infant Mortality (The Early Chaos)

What it is: Brand new equipment failing fast due to installation errors or factory defects.
The Reality: Your shiny new line will give you more headaches than the 10-year-old machine next to it.
The Action: Demand burn-in testing and daily monitoring with the vendor present.

Phase 2: Normal Life (The Sweet Spot)

What it is: Failures are rare and random. The machine hums.
The Reality: This is the zone you fight to protect. 
This is where you make money.
The Action: Stick strictly to Preventive Maintenance and Operator Care.

Phase 3: Wear-Out (The Decline)

What it is: Physics takes over. Bearings wear. Seals leak.
The Reality: The failures come faster, and they cost more. 
It is not bad luck; it is aging.
The Action: Rebuild, replace, or aggressively increase inspection frequency.

Stop reacting to every failure like it is a mystery. Match your strategy to the phase.

Walk your floor this week. Pick your most critical asset. 

Ask yourself: "Which phase is this actually in?"

Let that answer drive your next move.

You are paying your most skilled operators to be delivery drivers.

We obsess over cycle times. We buy faster machines. We run Kaizen events.

But then we let the operator walk 50 feet to find a box of screws.

Your continuous improvement is missing the most critical role: 
The Water Spider. It is not a forklift driver. It is not a random "parts fetcher." 

It is a highly choreographed role designed to do one thing: Keep the operator in the Value Zone.

Here is how world-class plants run a Water Spider:

1. Fixed Route: They walk the exact same path every single time.

2. Fixed Timing: They move to the rhythm of Takt Time, not when they feel like it.

3. Standard Quantities: They deliver exactly what is needed for the next cycle. No massive pallets.

4. Pull Signals: They move based on visual Kanban, never on gut feeling.

5. Immediate Escalation: They are the first line of defense when the line is about to starve.

Here is the difference this one role makes:

Without a Water Spider: 
Operators chase parts. Machines sit idle. Cycle times fluctuate. Waste piles up.

With a Water Spider: 
Operators stay put. Machines run continuously. Output becomes perfectly predictable.

Your operators should be making product. 

They should not be hunting for parts.

Fix the role. Fix the flow.

Stop calling your Inspection Stations 

"Poka-Yoke." They are not the same thing.

Leaders point to their quality checks. They point to their verification steps. They point to their "Double-Check" policies.

But they are still asking a human to catch a mistake.

That is not Mistake-Proofing. 

That is just Mistake-Finding.

Here is the difference that matters:

1. Inspection (The Trap) 
Relies on: Vigilance and Memory.
Method: "Check if this is wrong."
Outcome: Detects the defect after it happened.

2. Poka-Yoke (The Solution) 
Relies on: Physics and Geometry.
Method: "Make it impossible to do it wrong."
Outcome: Prevents the defect before it happens.

If you have to tell an operator to "Be Careful" or "Pay Attention"... 
You have failed to Poka-Yoke.

Real Poka-Yoke doesn't need a sign. It doesn't need a checklist. 
It uses pins, fixtures, and sensors to make the wrong way physically impossible.

True Mistake-Proofing works even when no one is watching.
Look at your line right now. 

Are you Engineering the error out? Or are you just Training the operator to look for it?

One solves the problem. The other just adds stress.

If you can't explain it on one page, your team won't follow it on the floor.

That's the rule I live by.

We overcomplicate everything in manufacturing.

SOPs that need a table of contents.
Training docs nobody finishes reading.
Process flows with 47 decision boxes.

And then we blame the operator for not "following the standard."

The standard was never clear to begin with.

The best processes I've seen fit on a single page.

The best instructions I've seen take under a minute to read.

The best teams I've worked with could explain what they do in one sentence.

Simplicity isn't lazy. Simplicity is discipline.

It takes more effort to make something simple
than to leave it complicated.

"Complexity is the enemy of execution."

Start here: If your team can't explain it simply, you haven't refined it enough.


 Repost if your plant has too many pages and not enough clarity.

Your quality reports are not telling you the whole story.

(And the missing pieces are costing you 10X more than you think)

Every plant manager stares at the same three numbers:
Scrap. Rework. Defects.

We track them. We red-flag them. We build action plans around them.
But we are only measuring the tip of the iceberg.
The real monster is tearing your hull apart 50 feet underwater.

Here is the difference between what you see and what you actually pay:

1. Above the Waterline (The Symptoms)
What you see: $847 of scrap in the bin. 4 hours of rework. 12 defects at final inspection.
The Reality: These numbers sting enough to turn your dashboard red. But they are just pocket change.

2. Below the Waterline (The Real Cost)
- The Freight: $12,000 in expedited shipping because a customer is screaming about a late delivery.
 - The Overtime: Running 3rd shift on Friday to remake what 1st shift ruined on Monday.
- The Talent: Your star engineer spending 3 months fixing yesterday's problems instead of improving tomorrow's process.
- The Reputation: The major account that quietly switches suppliers without saying a word.

That last one turns great leaders into professional firefighters.

Quality problems do not just cost money. They cost time that never comes back.

The defect you catch today started with a decision someone made last week.

The Cost of Poor Quality is not a number on your monthly report.

It is every dollar your business bleeds because someone decided "good enough" was actually good enough.

Stop tracking lagging indicators. Start hunting the real costs.
Walk your floor tomorrow.

For every visible defect, trace the invisible damage it creates upstream and downstream. The math will terrify you.

And that terror will finally drive the changes you have been avoiding.

Hiring better people into a chaotic environment doesn't fix anything. 

Stop trying to hire your way out of a broken process. 

A bad system will beat a good person every single time.

(But leadership still thinks the problem is the talent)

It just gives you better people experiencing the exact same chaos.

A new operator joins.
They make the same mistakes. 
They feel the same frustration. 
They get the same bad outcome.

And leadership's conclusion is always the same: "We just need to hire better people." 

But nobody stops to look at what those people were handed on day one.

The process sets the ceiling. Your people are just forced to work within it.

Here is how you actually fix the system before your next hire:

Step 1: Write the Standard 

If you cannot document the core tasks on one page, you cannot train a new person to do them.

Step 2: Define "Good" 

Give them a visual, physical target of what success looks like on the floor, not just a verbal warning when they fail.

Step 3: Remove the Friction 

Ask your current operators what makes the job impossible right now, and engineer that out before the new person starts.

Fix the system first. Then talk about your team.

You can engineer the perfect process, but if you don't know how to get your operators to actually use it, your new SOP is worthless.

This is the biggest gap in continuous improvement today...

You can nail the cycle time. You can eliminate the waste. 
You can write the cleanest standard anyone has ever seen. 

None of it matters if the floor refuses to adopt it.
And they won't adopt it just because your spreadsheet says it is better.

Three weeks later, the old way is back. And leadership blames the "culture." But it was never a culture problem. It was a rollout problem.

People do not resist change because they are difficult. 

They resist because these 5 questions are running through their head, and nobody stopped to answer them:

1. The Purpose 
The unspoken question: "Why are we actually doing this?"

2. The Buy-In 
The unspoken question: "What is in it for me?"

3. The Capability 
The unspoken question: "Do I actually know how to do this?"

4. The Pressure Test 
The unspoken question: "Can I pull this off at 2 AM when the line is down and we are behind schedule?"

5. The Sustainment 
The unspoken question: "Will management still care about this next month?"

Skip just one of these, and the whole rollout quietly falls apart.

Process design is engineering. Getting people to change is leadership.

Most managers were trained for the first one. Almost nobody was trained for the second.

Stop pitching "waste" to the finance department, who only speaks dollars. 

Do this instead.

(Your Lean projects don't get rejected because they are bad ideas. It gets rejected because you speak the wrong language)

Every time a CI professional walks in and says, "We need to reduce motion waste," finance just hears noise.

But if you walk in and say, "We are losing $14,000 a month in labor efficiency variance because of unnecessary movement," now you have a meeting.

The 8 wastes are real on the shop floor. But the business case only lands in the boardroom when you attach a number to them.

Here is how you translate your Lean projects into a language Finance actually cares about:

1. Waiting 

Stop saying: "The operator is waiting on materials."
Pitch this instead: "We are paying for labor hours that produce zero output."

2. Defects

Stop saying: "Our first-pass yield is too low."
Pitch this instead: "We are burning direct material and labor that we will never get back."

3. Inventory 

Stop saying: "We have too much WIP on the floor."
Pitch this instead: "We have cash sitting on a shelf instead of working for the business."

4. Non-Utilized Talent 

Stop saying: "Our operators are just pushing buttons."
Pitch this instead: "Our most expensive asset is walking out the door unutilized at the end of every shift."

Learn to translate between these two languages, and you stop begging for budget approval. 

You start presenting a business case they cannot say no to.

taplio

The Battle

Ivan Carillo

Angad S.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreIvan Carillo's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAngad S.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Ivan Carillo

Angad S.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ivan Carillo's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAngad S.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreIvan Carillo's LinkedIn Performance