"Gemba" is the workplace. But this Japanese word has taken on significance far beyond its literal translation. Taiichi Ohno, legendary Toyota engineer and father of the JIT system, said "Management begins at the workplace". This whole philosophy can best be captured by the single word: Gemba. Of course, Gemba is by no means confined to the factory.

Contrast the Gemba way with the traditional (Western?) way. The Gemba way is to go to the place of action and collect the FACTS. The traditional way is to remain in the office and to discuss OPINIONS. Gemba can be thought of in terms of the "four actuals": Go to the actual workplace, look at the actual process, observe what is actually happening, collect the actual data.

Gemba is a "mindset thing". Having Gemba means the ability to manage and improve the shopfloor by being at the shopfloor, by learning to see waste, by working with the operators. It is a bias for action, not talk.

Under Gemba, if your organisation has a problem or a decision, go to Gemba first. Do not attempt to resolve problems away from the place of action. Do not let operators come to the manager, let the manager go to the workplace. Spend time on the factory floor or at the service counter. This is the basis of so much Japanese management practice: that new Honda management recruits should spend time working in assembly and in stores, that marketeers from Nikon should spend time working in camera shops, that Toyota sends its Lexus design team to live in California for three months, and so on. Ohno was famous for his "chalk circle" approach - drawing a circle in chalk on the factory floor and requiring a manager to spend several hours inside it whilst observing operations and taking note of wastes. The West too has its devotees: legendary operations teacher Gene Woolsey of Colorado School of Mines requires his graduate students to work alongside the operators before attempting a solution, and as a result has handed out many diamond pins signifying an audited saving of more than $1 million. It is slowly becoming established for Western hotel managers to spend time on the front desk and for senior managers to man complaint lines for a few hours per month. Open plan offices, with senior management sitting right there with "the troops" is Gemba. And, at HP, the production manager's office is on the shop floor.

Some further examples: At a newly established car component factory in England, supervisors were astonished to find they had no office. Their reaction equally astonished their Japanese managers who had assumed that their job was at Gemba! At Toyota, very senior managers spend up to 60% of their total time at Gemba (a figure measured personally by the author). As a result they have deep knowledge of shopfloor operations, equipment, needs, problems, and people. Decision-making is therefore based on first hand knowledge. Moreover, operators know it and appreciate it. Gonick and Smith (quoted by Woolsey) have another example: Ronald Fisher, biologist and father of modern statistics "not only designed and analysed animal breeding experiments, he also cleaned the cages and tended the animals because he knew the loss of an animal would influence his results". True Gemba, although Fisher no doubt never heard the term.

Gemba is, or should be, part of implementation. How often is the Western way based on "change agents", on simulation, on computers or information systems, on classroom based education? These have a place, of course, but Gemba emphasises implementation by everyone, at the workplace, face-to-face, based on in-depth knowledge. And low cost.

Gemba is often combined with other elements. The 5 Whys, Muda (or waste), Hoshin, Kaizen, 5 S, 7 tools, and as a central part of Total Quality. Gemba is the glue for all of these. So today one hears of "Gemba Kanri", "Gemba Kaizen", and "Gemba TPM". The word has already appeared in the English and American dictionary.

Further reading:
Masaaki Imai, Gemba Kaizen, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1997, ISBN 0-07-031446-2
Robert E.D. (Gene) Woolsey, "The Fifth Column: The Lieutenant Colonel and Logistics and the Captain and the Chain", Interfaces, Vol 26 n 6, Nov/Dec 1996, pp79-81