If you know lean, you’re already familiar with the “gemba walk” (quick refresher: the Toyota/lean idea of “going to the gemba” means to observe the work in the actual place where it happens). The Digital Transformation for Manufacturers project (an MPI collaboration funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce) has everything you need to know about how to take a gemba walk that helps your company become the digital leader it was born to be.
How? By deepening focus: as a team walks through a facility, it identifies a digital weakness —and then team members wrap their cross-functional brains around the problem to solve it. “Improvement teams must go to the frontline and see for themselves how and why a digital weakness exists,” according to the Digital Transformation Gemba Walk Guide. Fully grasping the digitization problem “cannot be done by reviewing metrics on a computer screen, or talking about a problem in a distant conference room.”
What kinds of digital weaknesses are we talking about? Maybe your warehouse reports problems with matching staffing to received volume. Or perhaps production units report that their machinery upgrades aren’t improving EHS performance. Or maybe maintenance is mostly reactive, and starts only AFTER equipment breaks down. These examples — and thousands of others — can be fixed or even prevented by doing the gemba walk to find digital solutions.
The Digital Transformation Gemba Walk Guide offers a step-by-step process for conducting a digitization-focused gemba walk:
- Communicate in advance the location of the gemba walk, indicating when and why it will occur, and who will be visiting the work environment. Employees should not be surprised or worried about the presence of observers.
- If possible, follow the upstream flow of work in the area (i.e., start at the work closest to the customer, and then move back toward supplier processes).
- Look for examples — or lack thereof — of the availability of real-time metrics for management and frontline employees, and real-time metrics being shared from the location with other corporate functions or supply-chain partners.
- Ask questions directly related to digital weaknesses, but also listen to concerns about other issues (they may turn out to be problems associated with the digital weakness).
There are some important things to keep in mind when conducting a gemba walk for digitization:
#1. Be aware of employee concerns about automation and technology.
In most cases, digitization changes employees’ roles, rather than reducing employee count, but change of any kind can be worrisome. We could write a lot more on change management (and maybe will!), but for now, suffice to say, sensitivity to this issue will make a gemba walk more likely to succeed.
#2. Take a “Goal/Problem View.”
Ask “What are you trying to achieve?” and then “Why can’t you?”
#3. Repeat gemba walks are essential.
Gemba walks should be repeated for different shifts at the location and/or on different days of the week (e.g., a problem may be present on one shift or day, but not on others, perhaps due to different levels of employee skills or experience).
Thinking about implementing a gemba walk to support digitization? Already conducting gemba walks? Let us know how it’s going — and share your tips with us on Twitter (@nextgenmfg) or LinkedIn. And for the complete step-by-step guide and tips from experienced practitioners, check out the Digital Transformation Gemba Walk Guide.
The Digital Transformation for Manufacturers Program — the result of a NIST MEP cooperative agreement award to Ohio MEP — is a collaboration of Ohio MEP, Ohio Development Services Agency, Ohio Manufacturing Institute, and The MPI Group.
