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.

As a person who is leading a lean transformation project it is very likely you will sometimes be frustrated thinking nothing is working and people are not changing. Change is a process so subtle sometimes you need skill beyond normal to detect progress. Inability of detecting it and worse being frustrated is but only harmful for the progress of the change process.

The speed of change is dependent on many things like how much people are educated about lean tools, involvement of management, and above all the crisis is the biggest catalyst for change. A good leader will not panic in crisis but will effectively use it to develop and motivate his team to accelerate the change process.

It may not be always possible to accelerate the change process. This is when you need patience and some skills to keep everyone on track. It is very important to know how the change occurs. I did try to explain my understanding in this article “Understanding change” . I don’t want get too much into the psychology of the change , it will be beyond the scope of this post and also because I am not an authority on that subject. Here is an example. We were trying to take control on our shop floor process which were in total chaos. Nobody new cycle time for any operation. There was no standard work, no production plan and many more problems.  It took over a year to completely turn the ship around and it is still changing and improving. We knew what should be the end product but to get there it was not straight forward and many times people did loose faith ,but still had keep it going. At first making people just do things and keeping them aligned daily through gemba walks then slowly doing led to believing. It is a interesting process to see how people start taking responsibility after doing something which they initially did not believe in.

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.

This is a simple tool that we used initially for the purpose of documenting sustaining the processes we had setup. It can also be used for aligning   processes to the top level strategy of the company.

Most organizations will have following basic processes:

• Operations
• Supply
• Management
• Customer Relation
• Product Development

These are any processes which have to be done routinely to sustain the business.They may each have several tasks done by different people. For example :

Process : Operations

Tasks :

• Shipping
• Production Planing
• Maintenance

The purpose of the Task Standard work is to standardize the various routine routine tasks required to sustain the processes which run the business

Here is an example showing the TASK STANDARD WORK of the SHIPPING Task:

These actions on the Task standard work will be transferred to each persons Leader Standard Work. Thus any changes made to sustain a task can be integrated each persons day to day work. This also provides the work content of each task and if you have total work content of all the processes recorded then it will help you identify minimum number people required to sustain the organisation.

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.

As we organize our shop floor and start identifying issues that interrupt the flow of products, we will need to be very organized to efficiently solve them. As I had mentioned in my previous post Scientific Thinking is very much required. But now what is a more significant issue ,which most of us had realized , is that we have lot of issues to solve and very little time.

We will not be able to change this condition overnight but it will require our faith in the system that we will design to manage Problem Solving. From now until the time we have an efficient system in place, we will have to take the leap of faith and deal with all the uncertainties and failures. The key is not knowing everything but being persistent in our efforts.

Now how to deal with the issue of Problem solving with minimal resources available:

1. Break Issues into sizable chunks which are easy to deal with.

• Depending upon the complexity and duration required  issues can be broken down. For the sake of simplicity let us say we have problems which can be solved in 30 days and problems that take more than 30 days. All the less than 30 day issues will be put on an Accountability  board using Post It notes and all the more than 30 days issues will be using the A3 wall.

2. Categorize the issues and tasks so clear  responsibility and accountability can be assigned

• Tasks can be categorized, for example into following categories  : 1. Mechanical Engineering; 2. Industrial Engineering; 3. Operations Management; 4. Project Management; 5. Production Coordination; 6. Inventory  Management; 7. HR Management; 8. Facilities Management.

• Each category will have only one person responsible and accountable for it.

3. Use visual tools to manage the workload per person

• At the workstation level we have an action Item List which shows how many tasks are assigned to the operator.
• For management we will have an accountability board which will assign tasks per person over the span of 30 days. It will show the daily workload for improvement tasks.
• The other management tool would be an A3 wall which will be used to display tasks per person in each value stream. No more than 3 A3s will be assigned per person and all the pending A3 will be in queue in a space provided below the Active A3 area.

4. Divide everyone’s daily schedule and assign time for routine tasks and improvement projects

• Each and every person in the management needs to identify their role in maintaining the current system to run our operations. This involves a series of routine tasks which will be standardized and made part of the Leader Standard Work. Tools like the Gemba walk is one example which has been standardized by the use of standard 10 questions (will discuss this in detail in another post). Other tools like check lists can also be used. Also a certain portion of daily work Would be devoted for improvement projects or tasks which are listed on the accountability board or the A3 wall.
• This is the most important management piece which will help us sustain and improve. As we are disciplined to follow Leader Standard Work and persistent to find and solve problems only then will we be able to sustain the system. If we do not question every action, do not check if people are following standard work or not, then over a period of time things will again get out of control.

5. Design simple tools which can be used to decentralize the solving of recurring issues

• More people equipped with ability to solve problems provides for a lesser workload on management. To make this possible the problem solution should be simplified by the use of templates, forms or diagrams which take the people involved in solving through identification, root cause analysis, containment of existing defective parts/ or immediate fix, and finding a permanent solution to avoid any future occurrence and finally incorporate the solution into the standard work.

It has been very beneficial to organize the plant using 5S. The basic goal of this program was to achieve stability and standardization. We used tools like 5S and Standard Work and educated ourselves as how they form the foundation for any Improvement in the future.

The System that was setup, not only  identify and eliminate waste to some extent  but also helped boost employee morale. This was a very significant development for our organisation during this time of economic downturn. Now all our efforts would be focused to sustain  what we have achieved and continuously improve.

As our next step we wanted to be sure that we are equipped and ready to support our operations without being overburdened or have too much variations. This leads us to “Leader Standard work”, by which we will standardize our routine daily work elements and ensure all the managers have scheduled time to work on improvement of their key result areas.

Also we understood the need to learn and actively use the process of Scientific thinking while solving problems. What is Scientific Thinking? We should never wait for that perfect plan to take action on any issue, but should use the natural learning cycle in collaboration with others to plan, do, act, and check. Our understanding and persistent use of this technique will align all the process owners on the shop floor to use this method and scientifically solve their problems.

I will briefly Introduce how we could use scientific thinking using tools “Catchball” and “A3 Thinking”

Catchball:

“Catchball is a method of idea generation and sharing that mimics a child playing catch with a parent. The key principle behind the method is respect for the ideas and abilities of others. The ‘need,’ a proposed vision or direction, is expressed by the leader, and the subordinate responds with an interpretation of what that direction will mean within the subordinate‘s realm of responsibility. The leader then reviews the response with humility, open to proposals or ideas previously not considered by the leader. As the ball (idea) is passed back and forth, new ideas emerge, as do consensus on the right course of action. This process exemplifies the principle-based thinking that is a hallmark of excellence.” – from “Guideline for Shingo Prize Model”

A3 Thinking:

“Decentralized planning and execution are facilitated by carefully crafted single-page reports that become working discussion documents. A3 is a size of paper (approximately 11-inch by 17-inch). An A3 report may be a proposal, a plan, a status report, or the final documentation for archival and sharing. The format uses scientific thinking, but is flexible enough to accommodate unique issues and a variety of uses. A3 design guidelines include:

• Less is more,

• A picture is worth a thousand words (e.g., charts),

• Visual clarity and 5S are maintained, and

• Functionality outweighs beauty (i.e., A3s often get passed back and forth — catchball — with multiple erasures and revisions; use a pencil).

The A3 tells a compelling story then directs resources and action through action-oriented communication. A3 thinking also supports 15-minute standing meetings that get to the point and focus on results.” – from “Getting Right things done- Pascal Dennis”

We have just begun the real journey of Lean transformation now, after our restructuring of the shop floor. We have not improved or completely eliminated all the waste, that was not the purpose of this phase, but we provided ourselves the means to identify these problems. The next part of  the journey will involve very subtle change. It will not be physical change of the equipment or layout but change in our mental process. We have to figure out how we are going to support and improve and sustain the lean initiative on day to day basis and be a profitable business.

After almost a year after writing the job descriptions we realised it was not sufficient to manage process as our shop floor evolved with lean implementation. It just did not provide the information of what needs to be done and when on day to day basis. Effectiveness at a particular job was more dependant on that person and his qualities. Also there was no link between changing processes on the floor and what we need to change in our own schedule to ensure the sustainability of the lean systems.

After reading about Leader Standard Work (Creating Lean Culture ) thought this would definitely be worth a try.

Now how do we implement this? first thing to do was to record what we actually do on everyday  hour by hour and identify Daily, Weekly , Monthly, Quarterly tasks. We decided to record our tasks for one week and then meet to check how we can setup our standard work. Everything was smooth till we met, that is when I realised that  the way I collected was not very efficient to use. It was not a mojor isssue had to manually write the standard work for everyone and then verify from evryone that is what they intended to do. I would suggest to use a template of Leader Standard work which best suits your process. Distribute a blank template to all the people to collect the data and develop the Standard Work. I am providing an example just to give you an idea of what can be used.

This is just the first  phase of implementation where with two goals :

1. Identifying what we are doing right now

2. Getting our team acquainted with the process of developing and using leader standard work

Second phase would be to identify what needs to be done to sustain what we have accomplished and incorporate that in to our Standard work.