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Posts tagged gemba walk
Gemba in the Big City

Four years into the Lean Transformation at Armstrong World Industries, we started expanding Lean beyond our manufacturing operations. Forward-thinking leaders came up with an idea to help us better understand the customer experience from the inside. That is, we would conduct a “Customer Experience” Value Stream Mapping event, with the Gemba being the place where the customer interacted with our ceiling products the most – at their job site(s).

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Knowing Your Product a Bit Too Well (Story of the Clay Eaters at Dal-Tile)

In 1995, Dal-Tile bought a majority stake in the American Olean Tile Company, who I was working for at the time. I was offered an Industrial Engineering position at their corporate headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Always up for a challenge, I moved my family, for the fourth time in my career, from Olean, New York.

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Go to Gemba, Even If You Don’t Want To

In 2019, I was asked to facilitate the annual Value Stream Mapping (strategic planning) event for a leading consumer brands manufacturer at their facility in Central Pennsylvania. I had facilitated their event the prior year and it was our intent to build on the prior results and drive their continuous improvement culture forward during the event.

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From Russia with Love: The Spirit of Kaizen Lives in All of Us

A Russian ceilings manufacturing plant asked me to help them facilitate their strategic road map in 2017. This was an activity they did annually since the plant opened in 2015. I had been to Russia one time before, during construction of the plant, so I had some experience travelling there and working with the people. This time, I would be coaching their continuous improvement leader in how to organize and facilitate this important session.

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Listen To Your People, People

A Research and Development team wanted to create a three-year strategic plan. Their goal was to reduce the time it takes from a new product idea to launch of the new product.  Many of the team members believed “you can’t schedule invention.” Working with the team leader, the Research and Development Director, we decided to focus on the work leading up to and supporting the invention, even if we couldn’t specify when an invention would occur. We agreed to use Value Stream Mapping as the approach to help the team accomplish their goals.

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350 Business Owners

An engineered flooring plant in Kentucky was losing money. They knew their product yields were deteriorating and didn’t know what to do about it. Process Improvement Partners was invited for a site visit. After reviewing performance and discussing the issues with plant leaders in a meeting room, we took a Gemba Walk to see what was actually happening.

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