WK 3 – 07 EXERCISE “Going to Gemba”

[Mike Hincks]

Chapter 10 of Lean For Dummies, on pages 204-206, introduces you to the Lean mantras of genchi genbutsu and gemba.

Select an area of work within your department you are not entirely familiar with. Go to where that selected work is performed and carefully observe its conduct. Be sure to only watch and observe.

To complete this exercise, reply to this posting with a brief description of what you learned from going to gemba.

To create and send your response, just select this note and click on the Reply button, then after typing your response (and attaching your files, if you choose that route), click Send.

Thanks!

[Ely Mcginty]

I think my site visit a few months back is a perfect example for this. I got to sit and observe what our forms consultants do when they visit a site and got a generic sense of how forms are configured. It gave me the knowledge of how this component may be important to the customer and also how they would use it. It also gave me a sense of a form is processed and applied as well. 

[ajones]

I do not see how this can be applied in our department. There are no duties or functions in our department that we all do not take a part of. I can see how this would be better used as a cross functional exercise to observe other departments and learn their process or work flow. This would serve us in knowing what another department might expect from our department in helping customer utilize our product better.

[estolberg]

I'm going to have to agree with Ely on this one. Going on a site visit hit many of the items in the list on page 205, such as building relationships with organization (customer). By listening to customer issues firsthand, I was able to see how a "normal" customer uses MasterControl, the issues they have on a daily basis, and by the end of the week had earned their trust and respect. This can translate into more understanding customers (when calling TS), and a more proactive approach to customer service on our end.

[David Healey]

I had the opportunity to go out to a customer's implementation this past week at Akrochem, in Akron, OH.  I learned a lot from watching Marty Jackson help the customer implement their forms and information into their test sights.  I had questions about the way certain things were done, but as I watched I saw that my questions were answered.  It was a wonderful experience to see MasterControl from the customer's perspective.  I gained a lot from my experiences there.

[Chanse]

Unfortunately in the position I'm in working the swing shift, I'm not in a position to do this.  I haven't been to a customer site to observe either so I'm unable to comment on that.