Gemba Walk is the act of visiting the shop floor in Lean and Kaizen. Literally translated as 'The Real Place', it emphasis the importance of understanding for the management / leadership, what is happening at every level. Gemba walks are a critical continuous improvement technique. With a thoughtful and structured approach, Gemba Walks can improve communication and collaboration between staff and leaders. Employees also are more likely and able to describe inefficiencies, safety hazards, and other concerns when they are in their own workspace. This results in the identification of opportunities for improvement that may otherwise be missed.

1. Gemba Walk
A presentation by
- Ravikeerthi Rao
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2. Organizational Goal
What is the main goal of any organization?
• To increase and/or maximize the profit, right?
• (Some body may say that, goal of an organization is to
increase the business – but the main reason why they want to
increase the business is to make more money. i.e. more profit,
correct?)
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3. How to increase the profit?
How to increase the profit?
• By selling at higher price
But we can not increase the price beyond certain
level because of the competition. So what is the
other option?
• By reducing the cost
• How you can do this?
• By reducing the wastage
• By increasing the productivity
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4. How to increase the profit?
• Lean Manufacturing is a business philosophy which has
proven highly successful in increasing the profit significantly.
• How?
• Lean Manufacturing techniques can reduce costs, eliminate
waste, increase productivity, maintain high levels of quality.
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5. Organizational Problems
• Apart from Profit, there are other organizational problems .
• In order to solve “organizational problems” we need to apply -
in a disciplined way - the scientific method of PDCA (plan-do-
check-act).
• PDCA process requires an in-depth understanding of the root
causes of every problem which can only be achieved through
direct observation of work processes and fact-based
information that comes from people who work in these
processes.
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6. What is a Gemba?
• Even, according to Lean manufacturing philosophy, the
problems in a business process or production line are often
easily visible, and the best improvement come from going to
'the real place', where the actual work happens.
(as opposed to discussing a warehouse problem in a conference room)
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7. What is Gemba?
• Gemba (also spelt less commonly as genba) is a Japanese
term meaning "the real place."
• Japanese police could refer to a crime scene as gemba, and TV
reporters often refer to themselves as “reporting live from
gemba”.
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8. What is Gemba?
• In business, however, gemba refers to any place in any
organization, where value is created.
• The most common use of this term is in manufacturing,
where the gemba is the “factory floor”.
• Beyond this, gemba can really be any "site", such as a
building site in construction, the sales floor in retail, or
somewhere the service provider interacts directly with
the customer e.g. a car dealership showroom.
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9. What is Gemba Walk ?
• Gemba walk is a lean manufacturing tool.
• The Gemba walk is a concept developed by Taiichi Ohno, who
is often considered the father of Just-in-time production.
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10. Gemba walk
• In the practice of Lean and Kaizen, Gemba walk means :
– taking the time to watch how a process is done, and
– talking with those who do the job.
• Duration of Gemba walk must be min 30 minutes – max 60
minutes
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11. Goal of a Gemba walk
• The goal of a Gemba walk is to allow managers and
leaders :
– to observe the actual work process at the place where it
occurs (How products are built),
– engage with employees (How services are provided),
– gain the first-hand knowledge about the work process
(Current challenges), and
– explore opportunities for continuous improvement.
• This aim is narrow, focused, and very specific - to ask
questions rather than to give answers, which helps them
identify varied opportunities for improvement.
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12. Management By Walking Around (MBWA)
• There is another Management strategy coined by “Hewlett
Packard” called “Management By Walking Around (MBWA)”.
• It involves seeing what’s going on more broadly (or, done
badly), just saying hello and visiting people in the workplace.
• In MBWA the destination is – by definition - unstructured and
undefined, with the leader walking around checking in with
employees on equipment and process at random.
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13. Difference between Gemba Walk & MBWA
• During a Gemba Walk, the manager asks very in-depth
questions about the process being observed, like:
• Who is involved?
• What materials are used?
• What do you do?
• How do you know what to do?
• When does the task take place?
• What is depend on the outcome? , etc.
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14. Difference between Gemba Walk & MBWA
• On the contrary, MBWA does not involve that degree of
depth.
• Because of which, the general feeling is that , MBWA is hardly
ever effective.
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15. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
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16. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
1) Define the problem
– Discuss the problem you are facing, with the team, and
make a clear problem statement.
– It will help you define the scope of the issue you are going
to investigate.
Ex: An Production Manager might pose questions like:
a) “I believe that we have excess WIP in and around our production
areas causing excess lead time in delivering products to our
customers. Let’s go take a look.”, or
b) “I have a hunch that the sample selecting method and way our
QAE does the inspection could be contributing to increase in
customer complaints”.
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17. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
2. Formalize a list of questions to review during the gemba
session.
• Try to be as focused as possible in order to find an
effective solution at the end.
• For example, here are some questions that you might ask
when focusing on equipment and tool maintenance:
a) Is there evidence of a formal preventative
maintenance and auditing program?,
b) Is a timetable and tracking sheet posted near critical
tools and equipment.
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18. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
Another instance, here are some questions that you might ask /
arise when focusing on QA activity (when the reason for the walk is to
find out the cause for complaints) :
1) Is QA Executive selects the cartons randomly and escort the
cartons to the inspection location personally,
2) How he supervise the preparation of sample for inspection,
3) how many people are there around the inspection table,
4) is he getting distracted by others?
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19. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
3. Focus on process, not on people.
– The main purpose is to observe, understand and improve the
process. You are not there to judge and review results.
– Try to focus on “finding the weak spots of the process”, not of
the people.
– Have in mind that a Gemba walk is not a “boss walk”. It is not
appropriate to use a Gemba walk to point out employee flaws,
or enforce policy.
– If you focus on people’s personal abilities, you will only face a
resistance or employees closing off altogether.
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20. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
4 Be where the value stream is.
– Following the value chain will give you the best
opportunities to identify areas with a high potential of
waste activities.
– Streamlining / Eliminating those activities will help you
improve the overall performance.
(A value chain is : A sequence of interdependent activities to either design, produce
and/or deliver goods or service to a customer, and includes the dual flows of material
and information).
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21. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
5. Record your observations.
– Write down everything that grabs your attention or even
record it with your smartphone.
– In some cases, you will probably be tempted to offer a
solution immediately, but this would be wrong. Leave the
analysis for later.
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22. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
6. Here are some things that should not be happening on the
Gemba Walk:
• Leader breaking from standard work (of Gemba walk) to ask
or comment on whatever comes to his/her mind.
• Leader noticing things he/she does not like and demanding to
know why they aren’t being fixed (e.g. Why are all those empty
boxes kept on the floor? Why is the machine down and who is coming to
fix it?).
• Leader - walking with a Lean coach who is supposed to be
giving feedback but is afraid to say anything critical to avoid
getting in trouble.
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23. 7 Steps for a Successful Gemba Walk
7. After each Gemba walk a meeting shall be held with the leadership
team to carefully analyze the situation and take decision.
• The main purpose of the meeting is to have as many different
points of view as possible in order to make the best decision.
• The discussion should be based on facts and real data, rather than
emotional opinions.
• It is only when the situation is fully understood, the corrective
action taken is more likely to succeed, and the improvement is
possible.
• One of the key factors for successful implementation of this
technique is to take an informed decision.
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24. Successful Implementation
• After a certain period of time, the team needs to meet again
and check if their actions actually had a positive impact.
• If not, the process should be repeated.
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25. Significant advantages of Gemba walks
Take Gemba walks to: Validate Standard Work/SOP
• If you have Standard Operating Procedure in place for each
process, a Gemba walk is the perfect (perhaps only) way to
verify that work is being done as per the Standard.
• There is frequently a big difference between how the process
is documented and how it is actually being performed.
• You may find that additional training about the Standard is
needed, or that the Standard should be updated to reflect
changes to the process.
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26. Significant advantages of Gemba walks
• Gemba walks are useful for leaders at every level but particularly eye-
opening for executives and other top-level managers.
• Performing Gemba walks on a regular basis can offer some significant advantages
like:
– Building stable relationships with those who actually do the work and create
value.
– Identifying problems and taking actions for achieving continuous
improvement much faster.
– Clearly communicating goals and objectives leading to increased employee
engagement. Feeling valued is one of the most important ingredients for
engagement.
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27. Significant advantages of Gemba walks
• With a thoughtful and structured approach, Gemba Walks can
improve communication and collaboration between staff and
leaders.
• Employees also are more likely and able to describe
inefficiencies, safety hazards, and other concerns when they
are in their own workspace.
• This results in the identification of opportunities for
improvement that may otherwise be missed.
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28. Significant advantages of Gemba walks
• In fact, in a implementation of process change :
• reviewing ideas,
• piloting changes, and
• tweaking implementation issues
are all great uses of the gemba walk.
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29. Significant advantages of Gemba walks
• Recognition for a job well done is essential to a culture of
continuous improvement.
• Gemba walks offer an excellent opportunity to show
gratitude for the things your team is doing right, even while
you look for opportunities to improve.
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30. Significant advantages of Gemba walks
• The Gemba walk can only be successful when it is built on a
foundation of trust and mutual respect.
• An emphasis on the intent of a Gemba walk as a focus on the
process rather than on people - helps avoid discomfort.
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31. • https://youtu.be/5rsHa3BwTdQ
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33. • Reference sites:
• http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/allanung-2063666-gemba-
walk-operational-excellence-consulting/
• https://kanbanize.com/lean-management/improvement/gemba-walk/
• http://insights.btoes.com/resources/what-is-going-to-gemba-lean-kaizen-
definition-introduction
• https://www.lce.com/If-You-Want-to-Know-Go-to-the-Source-1348.html
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