In this bonus episode, Tom Hughes visits FAT American Manufacturing in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to talk with Brian Meyers, one of the most prolific GembaDocs users in the world.

In just over a year, Brian’s team have created more than 2,000 SOPs - and actually uses them every day.

This episode dives into how FAT American turned standard work from a chore into a cornerstone of culture. Expect real talk about ownership, respect, and how documenting the little things unlocks big results.

"You're buying back your time by having a standard because you can just say go, here's the SOP, go check it out and follow through with it." - Brian MeyersKey Topics:

1. Making SOPs a Priority

• Why SOPs need to be part of daily conversations and celebrations
• How FAT American turned documentation into a shared responsibility

2. Building Culture Through Standards

• How morning meetings feature new SOPs
• Using standards to respect people and set them up for success

3. Buying Back Time

• The real cost of repeating instructions
• How visual SOPs cut onboarding time and boost clarity

4. Common Challenges

• Managing thousands of SOPs and avoiding duplication
• The importance of clear deployment and naming systems

5. Lessons for Every Manufacturer

• Make standards visual, not verbal
• Think like a new hire
• Don’t just create SOPs - live them

Links and Resources:

• Explore GembaDocs (https://gembadocs.com) for your SOP, skills training and lean needs.

Connect with Us:

• GembaDocs LinkedIn
• Tom’s LinkedIn
• Lean by Doing Podcast by Brian Meyers
• Fat American Manufacturing's website

🎙️ Subscribe to GembaTalk podcast for more insights on Lean culture, SOPs, and manufacturing excellence.

In this episode, Tom Hughes talks with Pankaj Malik, founder of IOTAFLOW, about how finding Lean principles 20years into business revolutionized his company. From quality issues to a world-class system with 1,000 SOPs, Pankaj shares how small changes created a massive culture shift in his organization.

This shift has not only improved efficiency but has also enhanced employee well-being, with increased trust, better working conditions, and even company-funded medical care and dividends for staff.

"...it's completely mistake proof, they have that drawing to which work, one, and second they don't have to hunt for SOP or drawing anymore" - Pankaj MalikKey Topics:

• How Pankaj discovered 2 Second Lean and overcame skepticism in his team
• The cultural shift that helped employees see the value in SOPs
• Integrating SOPs into an ERP system for real-time access on the shop floor
• How Lean principles improved not just productivity, but employee well-being
• The financial benefits of Lean - how IOTAFLOW reinvests cost savings into staff medical care and bonuses

"I'm doing business for 25 years now. And 21, 22 years, I was struggling so much with quality and timely delivery. And when I read about 2 Second Lean and you know it's a panacea [cure] for all these problems, I wanted to jump right into it, do everything, whatever I could. So including the SOPs and the Kanban. So we really started all together, asked my people to make SOPs. There is a struggle. There is a communication gap. If there is a quality problem, let's have a look at what is the SOP. If it is not there, let's make SOP."  - Pankaj Malik

Takeaways:

• SOPs are about freedom, not restriction – Employees now work without disruption, even when someone is on leave.
• Integration is key – SOPs must be accessible at the point of work to be truly useful.
• Lean culture goes beyond processes – Standardization improved trust, teamwork, and employee benefits.
• Visibility pays off – By showing his staff progress and setting targets, IOTAFLOW now provides better salaries and healthcare for its workers.

Links and Resources:

• Find out more IOTAFLOW (https://iotaflow.com)
• Explore GembaDocs (https://gembadocs.com) for your SOP, skills training and lean needs.

Connect with Us:

• GembaDocs LinkedIn
• Tom’s LinkedIn
• Pankaj’s LinkedIn
• IOTAFLOW LinkedIn

🎙️ Subscribe to GembaTalk podcast for more insights on Lean culture, SOPs, and manufacturing excellence.

Tom talks with Brian Meyers, founder of Fat American Manufacturing (FAM) and multiple off-road manufacturing brands to find out how traveling to Japan and Europe gave Brian a new perspective on Lean - and how his company has rapidly implemented standardized work to improve efficiency.

By embracing standard work, giving employees ownership, and integrating SOPs into daily operations, Fat American Manufacturing (FAM) has made incredible progress in just five months. If you’re struggling to get started with Lean, Brian’s advice is simple: “Just start.”

"When I got to Japan I saw everything and I was like this is crazy and then I came home and I was really frustrated and I was like we suck but I had no idea how to do it and I didn't know what I was looking at [...] And then all of a sudden everything was like click, click, click, click, click, and I was like, it's lean, I saw lean!" - Brian Meyers" - Brian MeyersKey Topics:

• Brian discovered Lean backwards - by visiting Japan before knowing what it was
• The culture shift needed to make standardization work
• Why Brian gave every employee the power to create SOPs instead of restricting it to managers
• The challenges of balancing production vs. documentation
• How FAM integrates SOPs directly into their ERP system for real-time learning
• Using QR codes to make SOPs accessible at the point of work

"Yesterday alone, we made 35 SOPs. If you have 10 people doing SOPs, you won’t get far. If you have 40, you’ll get there fast.." - Brian Meyers

Takeaways:

• Exposure changes everything – Seeing Lean firsthand in Japan made Brian realize what was possible.
• SOPs aren’t just for the shop floor – Documenting office processes helps eliminate waste in administration, too.
• Ownership is key – When employees create their own SOPs, they buy in and continuously improve them.
• Just start – Perfection isn't the goal; documenting current processes leads to immediate improvements.

Links and Resources:

• Find out more Fat American Manufacturing (fatamericanmfg.com)
• Explore GembaDocs (gembadocs.com) for your SOP, skills training and lean needs.

Connect with Us:

• GembaDocs LinkedIn
• Tom’s LinkedIn
• Brian's LinkedIn 
• Lean By Doing on YouTube

🎙️ Subscribe to GembaTalk podcast for more insights on Lean culture, SOPs, and manufacturing excellence.

Pablo Scarpatti, co-owner of Scarpati Amoblamientos, chats with Tom about how Lean principles have helped scale his custom woodworking business. Pablo shares insights on the birth of his lean business starting with an accident, how he developed workforce understanding of processes with QR codes, the process standardization, and the role of a strong skills matrix (and how it inspired GembaDocs Skills Module!) in driving growth.

"Knowledge alone is not enough—if it's not documented and shared, it doesn’t exist." - Pablo Scarpatti

Key Topics:

• How an accident led Pablo to discover Lean
• The challenge of standardizing a business with no fixed products
• Using QR codes to make SOPs accessible on the shop floor
• Implementing a massive skills matrix for team development
• Why creating opportunities for employees to grow, even if they leave, is key to success

"So teach them everything and releasing from them the fear. It's a roof that many people have. They don't want to do things because they're frightened. And sometimes in the production culture, the owners, like myself, have the fear of holding people because you don't want them to go because who else is going to do that task that only he can do. So yeah with the skills matrix, everybody can do it because everybody can learn. So you don't have a specialist. Everybody can be a specialist." - Pablo Scarpatti

Takeaways:

• Identifying repeatable steps in unique processes creates consistency.
• Training everyone in multiple tasks eliminates bottlenecks.
• Developing employees, even if they leave, strengthens the business.
• When employees own processes, efficiency skyrockets.

“If a 10-year-old can follow our SOPs, then we know we’ve done it right” - Pablo Scarpatti [talking with pride about his daughter knowing how to start and use their machines, and even get the factory up and running with the electricity generator!]

Links and Resources:

• Find out more about Scarpatti 
• Explore GembaDocs (https://gembadocs.com) for your SOP, skills training and lean needs.

Connect with Us:

• GembaDocs LinkedIn
• Tom’s LinkedIn
• Pablo Scarpatti’s LinkedIn 

🎙️ Subscribe to GembaTalk podcast for more insights on Lean culture, SOPs, and manufacturing excellence.

Tom Hughes sits down with Stephan Hilmer, COO of Tridelta Meidensha, to discuss how standard processes revolutionized their approach to efficiency and training. Stephan reveals how Lean methodologies helped their company navigate the challenges of the pandemic and optimize production.

"Knowledge is really, really bad. Knowledge is bad until you put it on paper. You are the expert when you get everybody able to do whatever you are doing right now." - Stephan HilmerKey Topics:

• Why undocumented knowledge is a risk to organizations
• Tridelta Meidensha’s journey with SOPs and GembaDocs
• Training strategies for implementing and sustaining Lean principles
• How they utilize CEOs and flow managers of each department for continuous improvements.
• The role of daily Kaizen time and critical thinking for SOP development

"Trust your people, train your people, and then you will explode. The sky is the limit." - Stephan HilmerTakeaways:

• Expertise only benefits an organization when it’s accessible to everyone.
• The best SOPs are those that frontline workers use and improve daily.
• Investing in employee learning creates a sustainable culture of excellence.
• Standardization isn’t a one-time task; it’s an ongoing process of improvement.

Links and Resources:

• Full GembaDocs Tour of Tridelta Meidensha, in UK and German
• Lean Made Simple tour of Tridelta Meidensha
• Find out more about Tridelta Meidensha (tridelta-meidensha.de)
• Explore GembaDocs (gembadocs.com) for your lean needs.

Connect with Us:

• GembaDocs LinkedIn
• Tom’s LinkedIn
• Stephan Hilmer's LinkedIn
• Tridelta Meidensha LinkedIn

🎙️ Subscribe to GembaTalk podcast for more insights on Lean culture, SOPs, and manufacturing excellence.

Hampton Conservatories are one of the original GembaDocs customers, so Tom got Dwain Steele, Production Manager, to dive into how standard processes with GembaDocs took the chaos and burden out of their workflow in the last three years to create a book of knowledge.

"The power it gives my team - ’I did a process today’ - this is fantastic, they went home, they feel great, because they've created this process that never existed at Hampton Conservatories, they've scored the goal.' - Dwain Steele

Key Topics:

• Why standardized processes are essential for continuous improvement.
• The struggle of creating SOPs manually with excel —and how GembaDocs solved it in 90mins.
• How to engage employees in process documentation and Lean culture.
• The impact of morning meetings on driving accountability and improvement.
• How Hampton Conservatories retains 40 years of company knowledge in a digital, accessible way.

"It took me 22 years to become a production manager, I could have done that in half the time I reckon, because GembaDocs was there. Would have made life so much easier."   - Dwain Steele

And find out how every GembaDoc at Hamptons follows their own set standard, with clear start, finish and pencil to paper plan first before the app is even open.

"you're training them on how to create the SOP to the standard you're expecting" - Tom HughesTakeaways:

• Apprentices using GembaDocs to train themselves, but also create processes from their learning.
• Creating a positive feedback loop from SOP to shop-floor
• Find out how Hampton Conservatories have developed a standard for their standards, including a GembaDoc on how to do a GembaDoc to their standards!
• Grandfathering products into GembaDocs to avoid the 8 lean waste areas the next time the order comes through
• How they developed process engineers who had ownership over their documented processes

Links and Resources:

• Learn more about Hampton Conservatories (hamptonconservatories.co.uk).
• Explore GembaDocs (gembadocs.com) for your process needs.

Connect with Us:

• GembaDocs LinkedIn
• Tom’s LinkedIn
• Hampton Conservatories LinkedIn

🎙️ Subscribe to GembaTalk podcast for more insights on Lean culture, SOPs, and manufacturing excellence.

In this episode, Tom Hughes, founder of GembaDocs, sits down with Ryan Tierney from Seating Matters to explore the transformative power of standardized operating procedures (SOPs). Discover how Seating Matters became a world-class Lean organization, the challenges they faced during implementation, and practical tips for success.

“We wasted so much money, so much time with systems that weren't up to scratch.” - Ryan TierneyKey Topics:

• The surprising complexities of creating effective SOPs.
• Common pitfalls, like neglected SOPs "stuffed in a drawer."
• How GembaDocs helped transform Seating Matters’ process.
• Actionable advice for rolling out SOPs in your organization.

“..it wasn't until we documented the process we saw how much waste there was. So there was probably 45 or 46 steps in this before. But the physical act of going through the documenting process forced us to improve it and see the waste.” - Ryan TierneyTakeaways:

• SOPs are a cornerstone of efficiency and quality but require proper adoption and visibility.
• Avoid overcomplicating your rollout; simplicity and accessibility are key.
• Learning from failures is part of the journey toward excellence.

Links and Resources:

• Learn more about Seating Matters (seatingmatters.com).
• Explore GembaDocs (gembadocs.com) for your SOP needs.

Connect with Us:

• GembaDocs LinkedIn
• Tom’s LinkedIn
• Seating Matters LinkedIn
• Ryan’s LinkedIn

🎙️ Subscribe to GembaTalk podcast for more insights on Lean culture, SOPs, and manufacturing excellence.