What is a Gemba Walk?

Gemba walk , in simple words is a form of “Management by Walking Around” (MBWA).  This is a very powerful tool as it is based on the fundamental principles of lean known as the ” 3G’s of lean ” as listed below. Gemba walk provides a first-hand unpolluted information about your Processes, Products and People.

3 G’s of Lean

Gemba – “The actual place”. This a place of actual work where the value is created

Gembutsu – “The thing”. Products or things which we are interested to improve.

Genjitsu – “The facts”. The real facts that are happening at the place of interest

I like to call Gemba walk as Management by walking around because it allows you to do just that. A 15 minutes Gemba walk has proved to be more effective in resolving flow interrupters for delivery than having hour long status meetings far away in the comfort of the office with unreliable data. When you are out there on the Gemba looking at the actual process, products and people responsible for them, there is no doubt about anything ,  no one can fabricate false information, you can interact with the process owner to resolve problems more quickly. This also helps all the Line Managers to align their priorities to solve problems for more efficient flow of the products through the value stream.

Few things to keep in mind to make this a successful tool:

- Have a clear theme and agenda for the walk

- prepare a list of questions to ask

- Setup a display board for each workstation which help process owner to answer question you will be asking

-  Have the top-most management do Gemba walk along with you at least during the initial phase, that way everyone know that we are serious about improvement

- Be disciplined never miss the gemba walk

- Make sure resources are made available to resolve issues discovered during the walk

- make sure the account abilities are clear and everyone responsible completes their task

Gemba walk  will be a good management tool as long as you use it properly. It can be used to serve various purposes. I will share more about my experiences in later posts. Till then if you have any questions or you need to know  anything  in particular about its implementation and application…. just leave a comment below.

Actually a post “Learning to Learn” by Evan Durant inspired me to write this. This topic has always intrigued me and have read my share blogs posts, books to satisfy my curiosity. I would like to share my experiences and experiments on this process and learn what others have done. I will briefly explain my philosophy and tools to slay this dragon!

The Philosophy of Learning:

Learning is not possible unless there is creative tension. Imagine a place where everyone agrees, they will never learn new things and grow. For this to be possible you need the right people and right environment. Right people are the one who questions the status quo and are not afraid constructive criticism. This is a tough team to have they will always keep you on your toes. The environment or conditions that will lead to learning  are explained more in detail in my post “The 8 Fold Path”. This is just my opinion but I believe most learning system will be composed of one or more similar building blocks.
The Tools:

Task Standard work & Leader Standard Work: We need to be able capture knowledge at process level and then link it to peoples tasks. The combination of task and leader standard work helps to achieve this. We had started to use this tools out of necessity for standardizing our tasks but learned it can be a effective learning tool when a new person joins a team or even for cross training. Task Standard work ensures all the tasks required to sustain a process are understood and captured thus providing reference point for future improvements. Leader Standard work ensures these tasks are performed by responsible individuals.In case of new person or cross training leader standard work helps the individual to do things religiously on daily basis till becomes a habit that helps him/her to do the job. The right habits helps develop right culture. Thus these tools if used properly can used to help people learn the culture of the organization. They are also good catch-ball mechanisms between the trainer and trainee.

More reading: “Leader Standard Work” , “Task Standard Work”

Gemba Walk: This is yet another catch-ball mechanism and very effective to get whole people on the team to align their thoughts and understanding. We cannot transfer what is there in our mind to somebody else’s  in an instant. We have to reinforce the idea again and again and how it implies in different scenarios till the other person understands its application and corrects any misunderstanding under the observation of the trainer. Every time the learner makes mistake the trainer is there to correct his path and realign their understanding. Several iterations of this during the gemba walks helps  everyone to learn  and align their ideas.

A3 Problem Solving: This is by far the most effective tool in teaching problem solving. It forces the learner to go through the PDCA cycle helping him to learn the systematic problem solving using scientific method. Second, the  catch-ball mechanism by which I mean every time the learner proposes a solution the trainer can send it back asking for  necessary fixes, and this cycle can go on till the best solution is reached.

Internal Training : We used to have weekly 30 min training for all the managers where anyone propose a training topic and present it. Mostly it would be one point lessons and sometimes games to show how one piece flow is better than batch. It was a fun way to learn and also a good opportunity for new managers to learn the skills of teaching in a safe environment.

Whatever you decide is your philosophy of learning or your tools, always remember to standardize the learning process so that any ineffective processes or steps can be improved or eliminated. We cannot learn the learning process without knowing what it is.

Few months back I had an opportunity to attend one our customers “Training and Supplier trade show”. The event is held annually so that all the buyers and managers get to meet all the suppliers and see their offering and collaborate to find better solutions.  They must have realised long time ago, for a event like this it is hard to make everyone work seriously with their vendors. For most people in these events it is a break from the routine, free travel at company’s expense free food and drinks! especially the free drinks . Working on serious issues like a cheap alternative for current service from a vendor is last thought on anyone’s mind.

But the event was not even close to this, surprisingly everyone was very seriously involved and they were enjoying it both the Company’s employees and also the vendors. The mantra for this was an ingenious way of integrating game mechanics into the purpose of the event. Concept was simple there were teams of  which consisted certain business units and randomly chosen vendors.It had very common game elements like points, leader boards and Big Prizes.Vendors had to come up with 3 points defining how they help the company through their service and products. Employees got points by going to each booth finding out what are these 3 points and remembering them. More booths you visit more points your team gets, which was continuously updated on the leader board. The winning team got an actual NASCAR race car body shell and bragging rights for the whole year. It did not matter how valuable the points are or what you will do with car body shell, everyone was motivated to do exactly what the event intended to do: Interact and know more about your vendors, find their offerings and often quest for more points led to discovery of new vendors or services.

Games have very powerful effect on motivating people. A simple but well designed game can keep people engaged and aligned towards the goal. I remember a year ago when we started a 5S reward system it were these same elements of points, leader board and a prize that kept people motivated facilitating change in effective manner.

How many times have you sucessfully implemented change using lean tools only to realize, after few weeks or months, that the manager and other people  have either reverted back to the old methods or have found ways to circumvent the newly established methods.

We learned the hard way that lean transformation cannot be supported and sustained with  traditional management system

Most of the times traditional management is results driven and may not focus on the process. Thus there is no inherent  motivation for the manager to improve the process. Also when lean tools are applied  this type of management does not provide a sustainable system to integrate, improve and sustain changes with daily feedback to realign to solve problems as they arise.

The “Lean Management” provides the framework to drive the lean culture. As identified by David Mann in his book “Creating Lean Culture“, there are 4 elements that makeup the Lean Management:

1. Leader  Standard Work

2. Daily Accountability

3. Visual Controls

4. Discipline

Leader Standard Work sustains the systems integrates the changes made during the transformation process. Visual Control and Daily Accountability helps keep the process and people aligned to solve problems as they arise. The Discipline of the leader ensures that standard work is followed and the whole system works coherently.

I was reading “Audit Vs. leader Standard Work” by Mark Rosenthal and I suddenly realized what potential we have created at our work place.

Over the course of the year we have grown very fond of the audits. Especially for 5S and we are developing audits  for maintaining other lean management systems put in place. So far they worked fine and actually helped us to stay on track and also creating in culture of continuous improvement. So you may be wondering why that is bad?

As Mark explains Audits are snapshot and often people will try to fool the system to be good for the audit but bad on other days when there is no audit. Now I wondered why it was not realized at our place?

The reason for this was simple , we had unknowingly incorporated that in our Gemba Walks. This ensured continuous followup of all the set systems on daily basis. This was an important move,  addressing to issues as we walk through the workstation was part of our Leader Standard Work (LSW). This kept the systems in check on day to day basis, for example an operator was informed about parts without any designated place immediately when it was seen rather then waiting to conduct the audit.

This has inspired me to think of new system where in we will no longer need audits as we will do bit of checking everyday by enabling it through LSW of responsible people.

Some things which helps to achieve this goal :

1. Try to break down big monthly tasks into smaller weekly  tasks , similarly weekly to daily tasks.

2. Use knowledge gained from issues of shop floor modify LSW to fit systems put in place to avoid these issue in future

3. Even if you have to use audits initially , make them stricter , raise the bar up as people start getting better

4. be disciplined to resolve issues  immediately rather than waiting for the next formal  audit

I am hoping to learn more by looking at audits and leader Standard work from this Perspective and ultimately be able to stay away from audits  by taking a bite a day using the Leader Standard work.

5S is often misunderstood as just a mere housekeeping tool. Impact of having a successful 5S system is more profound than just keeping the place clean.

5S is the starting point of any lean transformation and forms a catalyst for culture of change. Due to the very visible results it makes the process of buy-in easy for both the shopfloor personnel and Management.

some of the key points why 5s forms the foundation of lean manufacturing is as follows:

• Standardisation of process provide a stable base for incremental improvement
• Visible results helps boost morale of the people who then take pride working in this area
• Is an enabler of Continuous Improvement culture
• Prepares the workplace and people for implementing other Lean tools like TPM, SMED etc.

5S implementation may sound easy but in reality it may be very complex and even more complex is how to sustain it. Not being able to sustain 5S is one of the biggest reason for failure any lean implementation project. Properly sustained 5s program helps continuously improve the workplace and shows managements commitment to the whole change process.  Leader Standard Work is one of the way to sustain 5S and new control measures developed by implementing 5S.

Often we need to see something of interest from differnt perspectives to get comprehensive understanding. The tools that allow us to see thing with different prespective is called a  “Lens”. This is very essential for a change agent involved in Transformation of a business.

Shingo Prize model offeres an excellent lens to view the transformation process. Let us first use typical Project management method as a lens. Using this you will view the transformation as different phases of the project mamngement:

1. Initiation
2. Planing
3. Execution and control
4. Closing

This will suffice if was just project management, but lean transformation goes beyond that. At strategic level we need to understand whether we have created a system which will be sustained with proper enablers in place. What most people don’t uderstand is that lean cannot be sustained if applied locally using few tools. It is has to be complete transformation of the entire system, the processes as well as the management system. Shingo prize model helps to identify what needs to be in place to strat this transformation (the cultural enablers) and then how the collective learning and implementaions of tools though out the system achive the goal of lean transformation, that is profitable business. Here are the phases of lean transformation as per Shingo Prize Model:

1. Cultural Enablers
2. Continuous Process Improvement
3. Consistent Lean Enterprise Culture
4. Business Results

If you are change agent trying to transform a business and have been wondering if you are on right track, step back look at the process using this lens.

You can read more about this at MissionModel

As a Change Agent you often have to be able to understand the dynamics of change. Especially for processes where it is either too slow or too hard to come by.Different people will percive the change in different ways and some may not be able to see any change at all . This will lead to bad decision, giving up too early in the project and also frustations.

So how do we learn to  see the subtle process of change?

This is evident when you break down different phases of transformation for example; transforming a process from adhoc management to a one which is managed for continuos improvement:

We could possibly use the following phases as a lens to see our progress:

1. Observe

2. Observe to Detect

3. Detect to Measure

4. Measure to improve

The process does necessarily will follow this pattern , nor you should consider these words as only way to describe it, the important part is being able to differentiate between different phases and make sure there is progress  in the change process.  As this skill develops with practice it becomes an important skill to maintain your focused and keeping the team aligned during long projects.

The recent recession paranoia followed by some of the highest price increases of raw materials served as the burning platform, accelerating the process of change
Identifying your highest cost center and selecting the projects which aligned to reducing those have greatly proved to show how we can reduce our cost and still maintain the profit margin despite the price increase. This is a good motivator, to tell each person how their efforts are contributing to the companies success. The intangible benefit of this is now you have highly motivated people who know exactly what to do thus starting to roll that wheel of change in the right direction.
Now you will think its all that easy you will get everything done, but you have very limited number of managers and so many projects. how to overcome this challenge?
This is about  realizing how you can distribute right type of work to right type of people. Any organization has lots of challenges to be resolved. If you look at those challenges in more detail, they can be classified as one requiring very high level thinking and are very complex; second requiring mid level thinking and are some where in mid range of complexity, and third are simple challenges which may not necessarily require complex thinking .I think may be they can also be classified as:

1. Strategic level

2. Tactical level

3. Operational level
you will realise that there are very few challenges of the first type, some of the second type and lots of the third type. Thus it is critical to get the wheel rolling in the third kind without causing burden to your managers. A3 Storyboards is a good way to do this, where all the operators take control of all the small projects specific to their cell. Now there multiple projects running simultaneously without significantly burdening the managers, another advantage is now the operators own the change thus there is less resistance. The biggest advantage of this is the synergistic effect sets the wheel of change spinning in top gear.