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Friday, April 28, 2017

Greenbelt Operations Winter Class of 2017 Graduates!

A big congratulations to our Greenbelt Operations class who graduated today with big smiles and happy hearts!

It was a wonderful experience working and learning with you all and we thank you, on behalf of LSI, for giving us the opportunity to meet you.











 Wishing you all the best in your future endeavours and we know we will see you all soon somehow :)




Greenbelt Operations Treehouse Winter 2017 Graduation!

Congratulations Greenbelt Operations Treehouse Class. Scroll through to see how their module 3 Kaizen went and who received medals at the graduation! 










Thursday, April 27, 2017

Photo of the day


Porsche Museum, Germany

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Lean Sink

This sink sends used water straight to the drain. Save yourself some piping.
The designer was inspired by nature, the waterfalls in Sweden.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Japan Lean Tour Day 3 (BB Spring 2017 Spring)

Here we are, day 3 of our Japan trip.
We have moved from Tokyo to Nagoya today by bullet train and visited two companies!
What a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji :-) We were so lucky!










Friday, April 21, 2017

Greenbelt Hybrid Spring Module 2

It was a busy week for our Greenbelt Hybrid Spring class as they wrapped up their second module today. Our clients started the week off learning about MBTI, Takt time and other valuable skills and tools that were applied during their Kaizen in the later half of the week.









Congrats and good luck to you all. We look forward to seeing you in your next and final module.


Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Japan’s Love Affair with Sakura



Each spring, for just a few weeks, Japan falls under the mesmerizing spell of sakura or cherry blossoms.  Teams of meteorologists are eagerly dispatched to provide sakura zensen – detailed, up-to-date reports  - on the cherry blossoms, as they begin to sweep through the Japanese archipelago, beginning in the south.  Enchanted with the wave of unfurling blossoms, the nation celebrates.  Familiar shades of pink adorn shopping bags.  Restaurants offer time limited sakura items on their menus. Sakura inspired confectionary items beckon shoppers to indulge, and Starbucks serves their Sakura lattes.
Families descend on parks in the hundreds for their annual sakura hanami – a picnic or party to enjoy the blossoms.  (Hanami means to view flowers).   Companies have even been known to assign a staff member the task of sitting all day in a park,  to reserve a spot for the evening hanami party.
The wave of pink evokes new beginnings: the start of the rice-planting season; the beginning of the fiscal year and school year; and for many college graduates, the start of a new job.    
Why the obsession with this delicate, pink flower, which has been celebrated for centuries in Japanese art, literature and poetry?  Plum blossoms, it could be argued are equally beautiful, and their flowers can last a month.  Many people can’t tell the difference between the flowers of a cherry blossom and those of the plum blossom.  To make sense of Japan’s fascination with the cherry blossom, we need to appreciate two concepts in Japanese aesthetics – mujo and mono no aware.   
One of the qualities of Japanese aesthetics is the preference for perishability.  Lafcaido Hearn, an international writer on Japanese landscapes and culture, noted that “generally speaking, we construct for endurance, the Japanese for impermanency. “  For the Japanese, an object of beauty can be all the more beautiful because of its impermanence or mujo.  Kenko, an ancient Buddhist priest goes as far as saying that impermanence is essential to beauty.  Such is the cherry blossom, whose blooming time can be shortened further by spring’s temperamental weather.   The essence of the sakura’s beauty lies in its ephemeral and perishable nature. 
Closely connected to the concept of impermanence is mono no aware.  Translated, mono no aware refers to the wistfulness or sadness that accompanies the transitory nature of things.  The subtleties of this expression connote that beauty and joy in this world are often accompanied by the finite nature of things, and by the bittersweet emotions of change.  The allure of the sakura would be diminished if the blossoms lasted for a month.  It is because of their evanescent beauty that they are celebrated.  In Japan the metaphor extends further to life itself.  Life is rich with beauty, but life is also transient and tinged with sadness.  Mujo and mono no aware are gentle reminders to focus on what is important and precious, and  savour life’s moments. 





Lean Sensei International’s spring Japan Lean Tour kicked off this week.  See our previous posts from this week.
If you’re interested in joining our fall Japan Lean Tour, or interested in our fall Blackbelt program, which includes the Lean Tour, please contact our office at 604-264-1000.
Here are some comments from clients that have visited Japan with us. 


The level of excellence and care provided by the LSI staff is second to none. From the coachers, to the logistics and planning, to the translation, the LSI staff is top notch.
– Colin Jones, Solutions Architect, BCIT
The best Lean manufacturing benchmarking tour on the planet!
– Mike Jolly, Vice President of Operations, Marvin Engineering


Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Quote of the day



"If you can't imagine the future, you can't achieve your goals."

Japan Lean Tour Day 2 (BB Spring 2017 Spring)

What a fun day 2 of the Japan Lean Tour! With this energetic and fun group, the tour is becoming more and more exciting!

Today, we have visited an ice cream factory called Akagi Nyugyo in Saitama prefecture next to Tokyo. We had a wonderful tour and at last, we had all you can eat ice cream!! Many people enjoyed 2-5 ice cream and ice candy bars! Yummy!






After that, we have visited a place to make our own wind chime!
The instructor was very entertaining and Wow, we had a lot of people who are so talented!








Please also watch our very first flash mob in Asakusa!