Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy, Second Edition

The book focuses on the process, refining the process and applying definition to the whole idea of constant improvement. Not a sexy title about innovation and discovery but a wonderful volume about how to do things well, using common sense and proven techniques. Anyone in a manufacturing business, including sales, customer service and hourly workers will benefit if the precepts are followed. I refer to Gemba Kaizen almost every day for my job in sales. It is indispensable for problem solving, project management, matrix management and overall quality improvement. This volume coupled with QFD will totally run a manufacturing company and do it on a world class level.

This book explains most of the concepts in a very simple way. There are maybe a little too many references, although some of them are really excellent are good learning examples. Excellent book nevertheless!

A very good concretisation of the theses put forth in the first book. Maybe it is a bit too redundant at times, or too heavy on schematics, but I am sure a lot of people will appreciate especially this redundancy and imagery, so it is rather my personal taste, not a shortcoming of the book. Kaizen is still as modern as 20 years ago, and has never fully arrived in the West. There is still a lot to be done.

Good easy read yet educational. So much so I bought 8 for my quality team and gave to them. If you want someone to learn QA this is the book to get.

Awesome read!!!!!!

Very satisfied

This book’s interesting title spawns from the Japanese language, which serves as the nomenclature for the essential concepts conveyed in this text. This book communicates the concept of management which grew out of Japan, was popularized in the 1980s, and served as the philosophy for companies like Toyota. Management texts like this and Deming’s famous fourteen points taught and continue to teach the international business community about running better businesses. The philosophy of this work is simple. Instead of focusing on goal-achievement (as many in the West have), workers should focus on continual improvement (the kaizen) of their work practices (the gemba). Each day, they should try to eliminate some wasted energy or product from their work (the muda). I find this philosophy more congruent with my understanding of my work in the sciences and in research. It facilitates open-ended work instead of predefined (and often constricting) goals. Although the concepts are commonplace in leading American businesses today, the nomenclature was introduced to me from a group at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who use it to manage their medical center. After 200 pages of theory, this book also contains about 200 additional pages of use cases where these concepts are applied to many businesses in many different situations across many continents. It is relevant to areas as disperse as manufacturing, medical practice, and software development.

I have every warehouse worker read this. It changed production in our company.

The best book for understanding the role of management layers in a lean company .. The book includes a lot of examples and case studies that makes the new-to-lean believes that lean transformation is possible and worths trying. .. The benefits are huge ! At the top of all interesting topics the book covers, is the rule of top management / CEO in making lean transformation happen which without it lean is doomed to fail !

El libro es de buena calidad y es necesario para los que buscamos la certificación en lean manofacturing

The book is very helpful for entrepreneurs having a work place

The fact that this book was released in 1997 and they have been able to only release this second edition shows the commitment on Masaaki Imai to "not send rejects or defects to the next process in line" because the book is almost perfect...and it will continue improving ;-)

Gemba ist der Ort, an dem etwas passiert, wo gearbeitet wird. Der Autor beschreibt in diesem Buch, wie kontinuierliche Verbesserung verschiedenen Firmen geholfen hat. Zu Anfang stellt er noch einmal klar, dass es keine Verbesserung gibt, wenn man (besonders als Führungskraft) nicht ständig am Gemba ist und sich ansieht, was wirklich passiert. Zu leicht trifft man in Besprechungshinterzimmern irrelevante Entscheidungen. Was ich im Detail interessant fand, ist wie ein Kaizen-Ereignis vorbereitet wird. Der zweite Teil des Buches enthält viele Beispiele mit konkreten Zahlen aus verschiedenen Branchen. Nach dem Lesen kann sich also keiner rausreden nach dem Motto Kaizen wäre nur etwas für produzierende Betriebe. Nein, Kaizen am Gembe betrifft alle Firmen.