A simple guide to Gemba Walk
Table of Contents
Gemba Walk 2
What 2
Gemba: meaning 2
Gemba walk: definition 2
Why 2
Top-level and middle management 2
Team leaders 2
Floor level employees 2
Goal 2
How 3
How to implement a strong Gemba Walk structure 3
How to conduct an effective Gemba Walk 4
After the Gemba walk 4
Improve 4
Templates & examples 5
Organization chart example 5
Standard schedule 5
Excel templates 6
Examples of checklists 6
Level 1 checklist (Team leader to operators) for a welding department 6
Level 2 checklist (Manager to Team leaders) 7
Tervene’s Gemba Walk 8
Simplicity 9
Visibility 10
Centralized improvement tool 11
Support 12
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Gemba Walk
What
Gemba: meaning
Gemba (also written “genba”): Japanese word meaning “the real place.” It’s where value creation happens, but also
where most problems occur.
Gemba walk: definition
In the manufacturing world, a Gemba walk is the action of walking around a factory floor, or any other department,
to identify problems and improvement ideas.
Why
The Gemba walk is essential to sustain a company’s continuous improvement culture. It represents the first step in a
structured process that aims to systematically identify improvement opportunities and transform these ideas into
improvement plans. Here are just a few reasons to do it regularly:
Top-level and middle management
Increase productivity;
Increase OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness);
Reduce health and safety hazards;
Increase team leaders, lower management and workers autonomy;
Shift from reactive to proactive supervision.
Team leaders
Increase credibility;
Increase proactive supervision;
Reduce time spent on reactive problem solving;
Increase time spent on improvement projects;
Mobilize team members;
Simplify problem management.
Floor level employees
Day to day problems are being seen, understood and solved;
Increase implication in the improvement projects;
Decrease waiting time;
Decrease stress;
Improve processes and tools;
Increase feedback.
Goal
Identify and solve issues before they have an impact.
Identify and generate improvement opportunities.
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How
How to implement a strong Gemba Walk structure
1. Organizational chart
The first step is to put the company’s organizational chart up to date to determine who oversees what
department (and who). The best tool to do so is probably Visio from Microsoft, but Lucidchart can do the job
just fine for free. It is critical to define clear roles and responsibilities at this stage.
2. Introduction meeting
The top executive holds a meeting with all the team leaders, presenting the Gemba Walk and explaining why
it's useful for them. This step is vital to reduce resistance to change.
3. Set-up Gemba Walk checklists
In collaboration with each team leaders, create a list of verification points that they must validate with every
work units in their department every two hours. Always remember, these checklists must aim to identify and
reduce waste. It is important that the workers know that the Team leaders are performing these Gemba
Walks to help them and find solutions, not to punish them.
4. Standard schedule
Set-up a recurring 4 times per day event in the team leaders schedule so that they don't forget to do their
Gemba walks. For level 2 management, a Gemba Walk should be performed twice per day. For a standard
schedule example, have a look at page 5.
5. Effective Gemba walk training
Shadow every team leaders' Gemba walk individually at least once a week to make sure they carry it out in
the right way. (See How to conduct a Gemba Walk for details)
6. Schedule improvement meetings
At least once a week, set a recurring meeting in the team leaders’ schedule to be carried out with the plant
manager. The goal of this meeting is to follow up on improvement plans that are in progress and create new
ones from the new improvement opportunities they found during the past week. Your team leaders might
tell you they don't have time, but they must understand they’ll save time by preventing problems through
Gemba Walks rather than solving them after they happen.
7. Sustain the Gemba
Remember, we are trying to achieve continuous improvement, which means these practices should be
carried out every day. We strongly recommend setting goals for how many new improvement opportunities
each team leaders should come up with every week. We recommend setting the goal to 2 new improvement
opportunities per week per team leader.
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How to conduct an effective Gemba Walk
Validate all the points on the checklist with every work unit.
Remember that those questions are asked to identify potential issues and improvement opportunities until
the next Gemba Walk.
Ask questions in a solution-oriented way rather than trying to find who’s at fault.
Validate with the worker on every question by asking what, why and how. For example:
Painting Gemba Walk
Follow up questions
checklist question
o What is the colour code for the job?
o What is the quality standard for the job?
Is the worker aware of all the
o How many pieces do you have to paint in that batch?
work order information for
the current job?
o How do you usually paint that kind of piece?
o Why do you do it like that?
o If you had to do it your way, how would you do it?
Document an issue with the relevant information when you identify one.
Write something next to the worker’s name only if there is a potential issue.
An effective Gemba Walk should not take more than 15 minutes (~1min/work unit).
Wait before the Gemba Walk has been completed to address issues. Assessing all the work units in your
department before taking action ensures an excellent prioritization.
After the Gemba walk
1. Make a quick evaluation of the risk and the impact of every potential issue and then compare them to each
other.
2. Prioritize the issues in the order in which you think they should be solved.
3. Solve the issues in the order you just chose.
4. Once these potential issues are solved and you made sure everything is under control until the next Gemba
Walk, look for improvement opportunities in the issues you brought up in the Gemba Walk. Every issue that
could be prevented by standardizing procedures, implementing a 5S, a Kanban system, conducting a SMED,
buying new equipment or tools, etc. qualifies as an improvement opportunity.
5. Use a system to list all your improvement opportunities, preferably linking the following information to it:
o Team leader name
o Work station
o Checklist point that made you come up with the idea
o Internal impacts Eg. Operation cost, lead time, productivity, quality, leadership, process, internal
communications, health and safety, etc.
o Customer impacts Eg. Financial, delivery time, quality, customer service, etc.
o Other work center impacted
o Date and time
Improve
Once a week, the plant manager or the operation manager should conduct an improvement meeting with all
the team leaders.
The improvement meeting’s objective is to ensure a follow up on the improvement plans already in place and
to put new ones in place if the team leaders’ schedule allows it.
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Templates & examples
Organization chart example
It’s essential to thoroughly define in the organization chart who controls what department to make sure the Gemba
Walks are being performed on the right work units by the right managers.
Standard schedule
Having a standard schedule is key to improve performance. A worker that knows their supervisor’s schedule will wait
until then to ask questions or make requests, consequently saving time for both the employee and his supervisor. We
recommend scheduling the Level 2 Gemba Walk right after the second Level 1 Gemba Walk. This way, the information
from the two previous Level 1 Gemba Walks can be shared with the production manager.
Level 1 (team leader) Level 2 (production manager)
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Excel templates
Here is a link to download excel templates for Gemba Walk: Templates
Examples of checklists
Level 1 checklist (Team leader to operators) for a welding department
The goal is to identify two main categories of problems:
1. Issues that occurred in the past: to help generate new questions in the checklist to prevent those problems
from happening again.
2. Issues that might happen soon: to prevent them from happening and create proactive measures to minimize
the risk of it coming back.
Time Category Subcategory Checklist examples
Has there been any problems related to required tools, material, personnel or
Requirements
information in the past two hours that we didn't see coming?
Has there been any problems related to quality in the past two hours that we didn't
Past Quality Information
see coming?
Has there been any problems related to productivity in the past two hours that we
Productivity
didn't see coming?
Is the worker at his workstation?
Worker
Is the worker punched on the right job?
Is the worker aware of all the information on the work order for the current job?
Does the work order provide all the needed specifications?
Information
Does the worker know the procedures and standards for the current job?
Requirements Does the worker have the proper training for the current job?
Does the employee have all the necessary tools for the current job?
Are the tools in good working order?
Now Equipment
Is the 5S respected?
Is the equipment working well? Does it need maintenance?
Material Does the worker have all the required material for the current job?
Is the worker aware of the quality standards for the current job?
Information
Quality Are quality standards respected?
Material Is the quality rate goal known and respected?
Are Health and Safety standards respected?
Productivity Information Does the production rate follow the schedule?
Is the takt time respected?
Does the worker know the next priority?
Is the worker aware of all the information on the work order for the next job?
Information Does the worker have all the required material for the next job?
Future Requirements Does the worker know the procedures and standards for the next job?
Does the employee have the proper training for the next job?
Equipment Does the employee have all the required tools for the next job?
Material Will the parts will be ready and available at the right time?
Again, we suggest keeping the Level 1 Gemba Walk under 15 minutes and to perform it at least every two hours. If
there are too many questions in the checklist, team leaders won’t identify more problems, but rather let them slip.
Keep it short, but effective. Think 80/20 (Pareto Principle).
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Level 2 checklist (Manager to Team leaders)
Team leaders don’t always have the power, the authority or the time to address the issues they stumble onto.
Therefore, it’s important for the manager to perform regular and scheduled (although less frequent) Gemba Walks
after the team leaders’ to share information. We recommend performing a level 2 Gemba Walk for every two Level 1
Gemba Walks performed by the team leaders.
Time Category Subcategory Checklist examples
Has there been any problems related to required tools, material,
Requirements personnel or information in the past two hours that we didn't see
coming?
Has there been any problems related to quality in the past two hours
Quality
Past Information that we didn't see coming?
Has there been any problems related to productivity in the past two
hours that we didn't see coming?
Productivity
Could we reduce waste?
Are there any issues to transfer?
Worker Did the team leader perform his two Gemba Walks?
Information Is the team leader aware of the priorities?
Requirements
Equipment Is the equipment working well? Does it need maintenance?
Material Does the department all the necessary material for the current job?
Now Information Are quality standards respected?
Quality
Material Is the quality rate goal known and respected?
Are Health and Safety standards respected?
Productivity Information Does the production rate follow the schedule?
Is the takt time respected?
Information Does the department need more people for the next job?
Future Requirements
Information Are there any other issues to talk about?
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Tervene’s Gemba Walk
While it can seem easy to perform Gemba Walks, it can become a struggle to develop the right system to document
and manage Gemba Walk reports as well as to compile the data. It is also important to mention that the main challenge
people come across when trying to implement a continuous improvement culture involving Gemba Walks is to sustain
the project over time. The culprit: Change Resistance to inefficient and unnatural management behaviours.
Technology will never perform the Gemba Walk for you, but it
can at least remove most of the hassle for the user. It can
facilitate the documentation, evaluation and management of
the information and the reports.
Here are a few reasons why you might want to consider
performing your Gemba Walks with Tervene’s Software:
Simplicity
Visibility
Centralized improvement tool
Support
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Simplicity
Here’s how Tervene’s solution can help you manage your Gemba Walks.
From the Ipad app, carry out your scheduled,
standardized Gemba Walks and systematically report
potential issues.
At the end of the Gemba Walk, the observations you
enter automatically generate a report. If the issue can be
solved indefinitely, press the button. The issue clears
itself from the report and is now archived in the
company’s statistics.
If an improvement project is needed to prevent the
issue from occurring again, press the button
to convert it into an improvement
opportunity.
From there, you can report internal or customer
impacts, as well as which other work centers are
impacted.
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Visibility
One of the great advantages of using Tervene to perform Gemba Walks is the visibility it offers over the supervision
activities that take place in the workplace. We’ve found that commitment and regular follow-up from leadership is
the single most important predictor of success in the implementation of a continuous improvement culture.
From the many dashboards included in the web interface, higher management can keep
track of key indicators:
Number of Gemba Walks carried out.
Number of issues identified.
Number of issues by category.
Details on every issue found.
Pictures taken during the Gemba Walk.
All this data can be viewed and filtered by date, work center, team leader, impacts,
category, etc.
You can easily figure out which department has the most issues, who performs his/her
Gemba Walks, what kind of recurring problems they uncover, etc.
The administration console helps management decide which challenges to address next
based on their importance.
Pareto analysis suggests that
most issues come from the
laser cutting department.
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Centralized improvement tool
From the moment an issue arises to when an improvement project
is successfully carried out, Tervene manages the data for you.
Gemba Walks
Improvement opportunities management
Improvement project management
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Support
With more than 25 years of experience in operational performance, Tervene aims to simplify the implementation of
a continuous improvement culture. Strong from more than 200 successful implementations, our training program and
implementation guide have been specifically designed to address every possible potential threat to the project
success. Tervene also offers on-site coaching as well as post-implementation support.
By choosing Tervene, you get access to a step by step
implementation guide as well as PowerPoint presentations to train
your employees without reinventing the wheel.
Who’s using Tervene?
Question? Comment?
Get in touch with us at info@tervene.com or visit tervene.com
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