Por: Lando T. Nishida     3845 visualizações     Tempo leitura: 5 min

Many people may find it a nuisance be in the right place at the right time when some problem occurs in your company. For the Toyota engineers this is a situation that they seek all the time. Once a quality engineer explained that the value of a defective part is ten times greater than that of a perfect part, because with it you can learn how to prevent the recurrence of the problem. This explanation is only one that describes many parts of the term Genchi Genbutsu or as it is known, Gemba.

Gemba literally means a piece or true place. The term summarizes the expression: go to the site to verify the actual situation in order to understand deeply what is happening at that moment. There are many examples which we can use to express Gemba: disassemble the products of the competitors, experienced people attending meetings at the initial stage of a project (Kentou), personally adjust parts, systems and prototypes, engineers work close to their customers (as sales persons) before participating in the projects, etc. A real example that shows the amplitude of the concept of going to Gemba is what the chief engineer of Toyota did before the company launched the Sienna minivan. He traveled all states in Mexico, USA and the Canadian provinces with the goal to check personally the conditions trafficability of roads. Of course, this study took a considerable time, but on the other hand Toyota got valuable information to launch a new product such as: proper size for carrying plywood, adjustments in steering, new cupholders, improvement at the aerodynamic stability of the vehicle, among many others. According to Steven Bell: "The entire staff of Toyota is encouraged to go to the Gemba (place of physical work) to see, touch and feel for themselves ...". In other words, when someone describes a problem to you, no matter how detalied it is, it will always be the vision of this person. To be at the place at exact time the error occurred would help you to get your own vision and numerous other information which are very important to get all the facts altogether and subsequently avoid the recurrance of this problem.

How can we apply this concept in Lean IT? First it is valid to emphasize that this concept should be used not only by developers but by all the employees. Let me describe three examples of how Gemba expression can be used respectively by the directors, Product Owners (PO) and developers of an IT company.

• There is a direct relationship between Hoshin and Gemba. Any organization that uses Hoshin would know how to direct its activities, through the practice of daily management, what are the status of its indicators. If any of them have trouble reaching the goal, it is the duty of the officer in charge to go in person to the corresponding area of the indicator and ask what's going on - not for the purpose of punishing the employees, but help them find the root cause of the problem and resolve it definitively.
• The Product Owner must not only monitor closely the development of a design and make daily meetings with the team, but also visit the client often aiming to anticipate design changes resulting from modifications in requirements or market demands.
• Probably in the IT area, you may have heard this phrase: "The programmer should never speak directly on the phone with the customer. If that happens, the client will want to talk only to the developer, interrupting his work in the organization. " This statement is inconsistent with the concept of Gemba. Of course, the programmer cannot devote 100% of his time to supporting area, but reserve a few minutes a week in order to attend the call of one or two customers which is critical to his learning and improvement of product. Often the complaint of a person is the same as the other go solving the problem at its root, quickly (because the developer does not need to wait for the arrival of a report by e-mail), this way the programmer will eliminate several future requests. Sometimes with just one call from the client, the developer can solve not just one but many problems.

I quickly explained in this article the concept of Gemba (Genchi Genbutsu) and how it is used at Toyota. In addition, I provided some examples of its application in Lean IT and how it is used in technology companies. However, I emphasize that there are several ways to apply this concept in an organization, the important thing is to understand strongly what it means, what benefits it can bring and why it is used by one of the largest automakers in the world.

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Data da publicação: 09/13/2013

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