Thinking “naturally” of improvement
"The next value is the development of a Kaizen Mind — you think naturally in terms of improvement. You reveal openly any imperfections — any waste, anything that does not…
A Defect in My Own Process! Part 3: Countermeasure
(See posts from 6/19 and 6/20 describing the blog-post defect I caused and my first 2 steps of problem-solving) In this final part to my mini-problem-solving example, I'll describe what…
A Defect in My Own Process! Part 2
(See yesterday's post for Part 1 describing the defect I caused and my first steps of problem-solving) An important early step in problem-solving is "Go to Gemba." Gemba is the…
Three Short quotes on “Gemba” / “Go See”
I'll move on to a another topic tomorrow, but conclude this topic with three short quotes: "Go see, ask why, show respect" (Fujio Cho, former president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing…
Deeply Understand the Current Condition
"The value of genchi genbutsu isn't necessarily the specific act of going and seeing, but the philosophy of deeply understanding the current condition before making a decision or trying to…
The Queen of Sheba goes to “Gemba”
First, my apologies to any of you who don't like the "Lean" tendency to use Japanese words. I ask you to bear with me for a brief discussion of the…
Going to the “Gemba”
"Going to the gemba means observing firsthand how our products are being designed, built, used, and what problems we have. There are always problems because we are never perfect. The…
What is “Gemba”?
"Gemba is roughly translated from the Japanese as 'the real place.' In this sense, real refers to where the action is happening. To illustrate, Japanese television news reporters covering the…