Going to see buy oneself, at the Gemba, is a Lean commandement well received (understood?) by all those who went through a Lean initiation. Now laymen and beginners may ask: where exactly is Gemba?

First let’s clarify the meaning of the word Gemba. For this I’ll quote an old acquaintance of mine, Michel Baudin who is fluent in Japanese: “Gemba (現場) just means “actual place.” It’s where it happens, whatever “it” may be. A crime scene, for example, is a Gemba.

So the first answer to the question: where exactly is Gemba? is given, It’s where it happens.

In a Lean and manufacturing context, many people will probably cut corners and assume that Gemba is solely where Value is created, or where wastes in processes are to be found. And for this a gentle blame goes to Value Stream Mapping (VSM), which emphasizes the importance to investigate and later improve the flow part of the process.

Thus, to many, Gemba became synonymous with the factory or warehouse shop floor. And this is the second (and probably most frequent) answer to the question: where exactly is Gemba? It’s the shop floor!

Please note that because this is a frequent answer,
it does not mean it is the right answer.

Now come the contributors around the shop floor raising reservations: they take part in value creation, therefore Gemba cannot be solely about operations on the shop floor. Others argue they take care of this or that, supporting operations, and without them the system wouldn’t work, so don’t call us “unnecessary” or “wasteful”.

If you read the Linkedin post by Ian King, who I don’t know (yet), which inspired this post, and the 58 comments by the time I write these lines, you’ll get a nice sample of opinions and beliefs on the subject. And quite many are right in their own way. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ian-king-1a39b94_business-people-lean-activity-6953655042134425600-8u3u/

To come back to the basics, and Gemba meaning the “actual place”, if investigating a quality issue, the Gemba is the “crime scene” where problems are detected and maybe created. Until the actual place where “it happens” is located, this can mean an extensive area to check, ranging from suppliers’ premises to transportation, handling, storage, preparation, machining, packaging… Not necessarily the factory floor and little to do with value creation. It is rather about fixing value destruction. This is just one example out of manufacturing and shop floor.

And finally, In times where tech vendors keep repeating digitization is no longer an option in doomsday prophets style, I am surprised to read no mention of any digital Gemba in the original post’s comments. With all the hype around digital transformation? Seriously, no one?

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You may also like to read my post: Lean 4.0: where will you Gemba Walk when most of the processes will be digitized?