Genchi Genbutsu Archives - 6sigma

Lean Principles Go and See: Genchi Genbutsu and Toyota Sienna

admin — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 06:02:13 +0000

Genchi Genbutsu is a key concept at Toyota and the Toyota Production System; it means “go and see for yourself.” Lean Principles Go and See: Genchi Genbutsu and Toyota Sienna is an article showing how Genchi Genbutsu was applied in the making of the Toyota Sienna Van. Another way to think about this is good, qualitative observational research.

While doing some research on user-centered design for a class I teach at BYU, I came across a fascinating article on Toyota with an excellent example that shows how Genchi Genbutsu is way of doing business at Toyota. Below is a excellent example of how Toyota applies this principle in their everyday work (Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 24, 2003):

When Yuji Yokoya received the assignment to serve as chief engineer for the second-generation Toyota Sienna, he decided to drive across North America in order to experience the highways his minivan would be driven on. Like his colleagues, Yokoya is a believer in the Toyota engineering tenet: “genchi-genbutsu,” which means: “go, see and confirm.” Yokoya drove a current Sienna more than 53,000 miles, crossing the continent from Anchorage to the Mexican border, south Florida to Southern California and all points in between.

Crossing the Mississippi River by bridge, he noted that the Sienna’s crosswind stability needed improvement. He observed excessive steering drift while traversing gravel roads in Alaska, and the need for a tighter turning radius along the crowded streets in Santa Fe. Driving through Glacier National Park, he decided the handling needed to be crisper. He also made an all-wheel-drive option a priority, along with more interior space and cargo flexibility.

Finally, he decided that the new Sienna would have to be a minivan that families, and especially kids, could live in for extended periods of time. Upgrading seat quality became a priority, along with “kid friendly” features such as a roll down window for second-row passengers, an optional DVD entertainment center and a conversation mirror so parents could monitor what was going on in the back seat.

“The parents and grandparents may own the minivan,” Yokoya said, “but it’s the kids who rule it. It’s the kids who occupy the rear two-thirds of the vehicle, and are the most appreciative of their environment.”

This is an amazing example of stepping in the shoes of the customer — their environment, space, and experience. It is no wonder that Toyota is the number one car company — and, arguably, number one company — in the world.

Genchi Genbutsu and Ethnography

Genchi Genbutsu is much like a concept in cultural Anthropology called Ethnography. Ethnography is stepping into the environment and space of the customer — to see how they interact with the object or with their environment. Chief Engineer Yokoya did this — some might argue to the extreme — but it clearly shows his and Toyota’s commitment to good design and to the customer.

For more on design and Ethnography, please visit these articles:

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Genchi Genbutsu and the Toyota 4Runner

admin — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 06:02:08 +0000

This article entitled “Genchi Genbutsu Toyota 4Runner: A Powerful Go and See Example” is a story of how Genchi Genbutsu was applied in the development of the toyota 4runner.

Other articles in the Genchi Genbutsu Series:

Participative Design in your product development efforts ensures that the customer and firm get the product right. But, it takes some humility and a culture of continuous improvement and of being customer obsessed. The three attributes I just mentioned completely describe Toyota.

The article below shows how Toyota applies the notion of Genchi Genbutsu in how they made the Toyota 4Runner. This article is from Automotive Design and Production, October 2002:

“One of the benefits of this project was that our team was allowed to start from scratch.” Sure, there are incremental improvements. And then there are the starting — from-scratch projects like the 4Runner.

Furuyama on creating a better SUV (or a better anything else, for that matter. “There is a phrase that is often used by vehicle development engineers at Toyota to explain the foundation of our engineering strategy. The phrase is genchi genbutsu. As a direct translation, genchi means ‘local’ or ‘on-site.’ Genbutsu means ‘real thing’ or ‘actual materials.’ “More loosely translated as a philosophy, it means: Go, see, and confirm.

“The phrase is a reminder that we cannot assume to know everything. And that it is counter-productive to assume that we do. More importantly-and especially for those of us who think we have all the answers — the phrase is a philosophical caveat.”

So, in the case of the 4Runner, Toyota engineers based in Toyota City came to the U.S., the most important market for the 4Runner (Go). They worked with the people at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor and Toyota Motor Sales (Torrance, CA) in order determine how people use their vehicles and what the market is like (See). And they subsequently made modifications to their initial plans for what a 4Runner should be (Confirm).

Furuyama: “Where we began the development of the 4Runner was far from where we ended up. In fact, it was about the distance between Japan and the U.S.”

Genchi-genbutsu can make a whole lot of difference. Not only is it about being there, but it is, perhaps more importantly, about being able to accept that there are differences that may cause you to have to rethink your original suppositions.

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Genchi Genbutsu Communication and Communication Breakdown

admin — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 06:01:43 +0000

Genchi Genbutsu Communication is one way to prevent communication breakdown.

I’ve written previously about team dynamics and team size. I’ve since modified my feelings regarding those previous claims.

Here is what I said previously:

2 people are smarter than one

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 people are smarter than 2

a team larger than 9 people is just one big dumb blob

Ok, that’s not true at a wholesale level, but it sure feels like it. A small team with highly smart and capable team members can do much more than 10 mediocre team members. The Wisdom of Crowds mentality doesn’t work that well when it comes to efficiency in teams.

Quantifying Communication Breakdown

A more quantitative explanation is as follows:

One of the root causes of failure in projects is communication ” either a lack thereof, or miscommunication. Large teams are inherently vehicles for bad communication. This is basic combinatorics ” for a given project, suppose there are persons A and B. In this scenario there is only 1 communication link. Add person C, now we have 3 communication links, A-B, B-C, C-A. Add person D, then we have 6; Add person E, then we have 10 communication links. Inductively, as team size grows, the raw combinatoric communication link counts grows geometrically, not linearly. To demonstrate this, we use basic statistics of the form n-choose-r, where !, such as n!, is equivalent to n factorial, to arrive at the formula for how many pairs we can choose from n items:

For the number of pairs, we can reduce the above formula to the following:

Visually, as team size grows, the communication links grows non-linearly, but exponentially:

My True Position

Do not let the above dissuade you from large teams; if the product requires a large team, then that is what is needed. Caution, is what I am arguing here. The facts are that the larger the team, the more communication channels there are and the entire process then becomes more error-prone. If the product requires a large team, then expect the above challenge and manage it. One effective way of managing large teams is the Obeya.

The Obeya

“Obeya” means “Big Room”. In the Toyota Product Development System, there is a concept of a “War Room”, where the entire product, cross-functional team meet daily. The reason for this is to shorten the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle time, eventually leading to a quicker time-to-market. Obeya also attempts to break down walls between departments, and upper and lower management. Often times, Upper management is not involved in the dirt and sweat of projects or efforts, leading to uninvolvement and potential breakdown in communication or not getting buy-in until much later in the product or project lifecycel. In their words (Chemical and Engineering News, November 2003),

Toyota consistently tops the J.D. Power surveys and the secret seems to be as much in the employee training and product development process as in the production machinery. And that training has as much to do with company culture as it does with equipment and technique.

Behind the development process is Toyota’s “obeya” concept, which translates to “big room” in English. The obeya group is like a ‘cross functional team.’ But instead of weekly meetings, it is an ongoing session. The group would typically include engineers, design stylists, suppliers, assembly workers and members of our marketing team

“One of the ideas behind obeya,” says Niimi “is to shorten the PDAC cycle. In the concept of PDAC or Plan, Do, Check, Action, each part of vehicle development goes through certain steps – planning an activity…conducting the activity…checking the results…and acting on those results.

“In the past, each PDCA cycle would take weeks – with site visits, video conferences, and countless e-mails. But with obeya, there could be several PDCA cycles per day.”

For the development of Sienna, the concept was expanded and elevated to a much broader level. The obeya location was physically moved based on the development need, a “traveling obeya.” It moved from Japan to Ann Arbor, to manufacturing headquarters in Erlanger, Ky….back to Japan and then to Princeton, IN, where Sienna is built.

“The reason obeya works so well ” says Niimi, “is that it’s all about immediate face-to-face human contact. Also, new computer software enabled us to ‘virtually’ design and assemble nearly every component of the new Sienna prior to the production of a single prototype part.

“Thanks to this we were able to look at ‘ergonomic human factors’ from the initial design stage. The digital assembly software was so detailed and true-to-life that animated human workers were programmed to perform each assembly task.

“We gained a clearer, cleaner more accurate blueprint of how the vehicle would emerge from the assembly line. The result? Fewer changes, saved time and reduced cost.”

This cross-functional approach — horizontal as well as vertical team integration — alleviates the many problems that combinatorics teaches us about communication problems and breakdown. So, regardles of N-Connections as I argue above, Obeya can help manage the information flow by integrating vertically and horizontally as a cross-functional team.

In the creation of the Sienna, Obeya was used to bring decisions much earlier in the product lifecycle, ultimately bringing to car to market much sooner than anticipated, and thereby reducing the cost of the car by almost $1,000 USD (Chicago-Sun Times, February, 2003):

Toyota made extensive use of the “Obeya” or “Big Room” concept in developing the Sienna, bringing engineers, stylists, suppliers and assembly workers together to analyze all aspects of vehicle development. The resulting savings in development costs enabled Toyota to price the new minivan close to $1,000 less than the current model. Pricing on the 2004 Sienna ranges from $22,955 for the CE model to $36,930 for the all-wheel-drive version of the Limited, plus destination and delivery charges.

There is also research conducted by several research groups, showing the increase in productivity via Obeya:

¦having development teams reside in their own large room¦had significantly higher productivity and shorter schedules¦ The teams reported high satisfaction about their process and both customers and project sponsors were similarly highly satisfied.

Teasley, S., Covi, L, Krishnan, M. S., and Olson, J. S. (2002). Rapid software development through team collocation. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 28(7), 671-683.

And more,

Teams in these warrooms showed a doubling of productivity. Why? Among other things, teams had easy access to each other for both coordination of their work and for learning, and the work artifacts they posted on the walls remained visible to all.

Teasley, S., Covi, L, Krishnan, M. S., & Olson, J. S. (2000). How does radical collocation help a team succeed? Proceedings of the 2000 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, 339-346.

For software, Obeya is also very effective. Mary Poppendieck suggests the use of Obeya in the form of daily stand-up meetings, as well as frequent or informal Obeya meetings throughout the day.

Daily Stand-Up Meetings, Sit-Down Meetings, Three-Up, Three-Down

In the past, what I’ve found helpful for product- or project-type teams is to have daily Stand-Up Meetings. These meetings are literally done standing in the Gemba or in front of the project board, then going around team-member by team-member discussing what they plan on accomplishing that day, any roadblocks, and lessons-learned or challenges they’d like help with. This Stand-Up Meeting should be done first thing in the workday and should be reasonably short, maybe 15 to 20 minutes. At the end of the day, I like to have a quick Sit-Down Meeting, again 15 to 20 minutes, where each person discusses Three-Up and Three-Down, which means 3 things they accomplished that day, and 3 things that were a bummer that day that they’d like to work on the next morning and any help, if needed.

These meeting should be short, but done regularly. The daily-ness of the meetings will add a dimension of regularity, progress, and enables frequent communication. Couple these scheduled meetings with informal meetings as needed.

Too bureacratic? I don’t think so. If the time requirement of 15 to 20 minutes is held strictly, then there most likely won’t be feelings of bureacracy or over-processing or over-scheduling.

Mitigating Communication Breakdown

Again, basic combinatorics teaches us that as the number of agents involved in a process increases, the communication links between those agents increases exponentially, thus allowing for a potentialy N^x communication-link breakdown. To manage that, scheduled but quick Obeya meetings can help, as well as as-needed informal meetings between individuals and groups.

Check out these other articles on queueing theory, time-traps, operations, lean and six sigma.

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Ethnography Examples and Go and See in Lean Manufacturing

admin — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 06:01:38 +0000

Ethnography Examples and Go and See in Lean Manufacturing go hand in hand, no pun intended (as you’ll better understand if you read on). Observational Research is very important.

The Toyota Production System makes effective use of visual cues to mark location in time and space, boundaries, and to answer the questions “How am I doing?”, “Where am I?”, “How do I use this?”, and “What else needs to be done?”. Visual Cues are a simple but effective mechanism.

The assumption ” and, what empirical evidence supports ” is that we react and adjust automatically to objects and spaces that we encounter. I saw evidence of this recently: the picture below is my son watering flowers. Notice how he is holding the watering can:

The weight of the watering can is mostly distributed toward the bottom, yet my son is holding the handle with both hands at the top of the can. For him, it is probably “natural” to hold the handle, because that is what the object provides us. But, the handle is “unnatural” in the sense that it is ergonomically unfit for the complicated biomechanics of the hand and the weight distribution of the water. Arguably, my 3-year old son is struggling with the weight of the watering can and is consequently spilling water outside the target of the plant because the weight is causing him to be unbalanced.

Now, notice my other 3-year old son (yes, they are twins):

Notice how my other son is holding the bottom of the watering can? He did this as a natural response to the weight of the object. In other words, holding the bottom allowed him to be more balanced and have more control over the object. On the other hand, my other son had more fidelity to the handle, because that is what the object provided him.

Some design camps would call the design of the watering can above “not humane”, because it doesn’t allow the user of the object to be successful in their use of the object. I side with that camp. A book that I highly suggest is The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems, written by the insightful Jef Raskin, the founder of the Macintosh. His son, Aza (and fellow University of Chicago alum), is continuing Jef’s legacy of humane design and is the founder of a design consultancy called Humanized. Perhaps Aza would be open to an interview on shmula.com someday. Aza?

Back to the can: If you were a watering can manufacturer, how might you modify the design of the watering can to better fit the mechanics of a 3-year old hand and physiology? What would you do?

Another book I highly suggest buying is Thoughtless Acts?: Observations on Intuitive Design ” a highly recommended book. This book fully supports the notion visual management that Toyota teaches so well. The background in anthropology, however, adds a dimension that adds clarity and insight into why we do the things we do, and why we respond in particular ways to objects around us.

More articles on Genchi Genbutsu and Ethnography?

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Genchi Genbutsu and Tipping Point Leadership

admin — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 06:01:35 +0000

Genchi Genbutsu Lean Leadership is an article demonstrating through example how “go and see” is applied by Wiliam Bratton, the celebrated police officer who turned the Los Angeles Police around

I recently finished reading a few articles in Harvard Business Review on Leading Through Change. In that series is an excellent article on Tipping Point Leadership. Tipping Point, essentially, is an idea that Malcolm Gladwell popularized, but is a term that comes from epidemiology. It is a business term that aims to study or explain social epidemics. In the case of Tipping Point Leadership, it is an article that aims to explain how leaders can use the notion of “Tipping Point” to affect change in an organization. In that article are many excellent case studies, one of which is of William J. Bratton and how he used Genchi Genbutsu to turn-around the New York Transit Police and the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority.

Getting people to agree for the need to change is a challenge. Most often times, using data and numbers just doesn’t stick. According to the article, a tipping-point approach is to place your key managers or influencers face-to-face with the operational problems, so that the managers cannot evade reality. Poor performance becomes something they witness rather than hear about or see on paper. Taiichi Ohno places a distinction between “facts” and “data”:

“The root cause of any problem is the key to a lasting solution,” Ohno used to say. He constantly emphasized the importance of genchi genbutsu, or going to the source,’ and clarifying the problem with one’s own eyes. “Data’ is of course important in manufacturing,” he often remarked, “but I place greatest emphasis on facts.'”

In other words, experiencing problems first-hand “sticks” in people’s minds and hearts, whereas poor performance described in numbers is forgettable.

When Bratton first went to New York to head the transit police in 1990, he discovered that none of the senior staff officers rode the subway. Comfortably removed from the facts of underground life — and reassured by statistics showing that only 3% of the city’s major crimes were committed in the subway — the senior managers had little sensitivity to the riders’ widespread concern about safety. In response to this, Bratton required all his officers to ride the subway to work, to meetings, and at night. This Genchi Genbutsu approach was enough of a platform to convert the senior managers to begin policing differently and to enforce change in the subway system. While data showed crime numbers in the subway of 3%, the widespread feeling was fear, chaos, and panic — the senior officers no longer could deny this claim — they experienced it first-hand.

In another example, Bratton was made Head of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority. On one occassion, the board decided to purchase small squad cars that would be cheaper to buy and run. Instead of fighting the decision, Bratton invited the General Manager of the MBTA for a tour of the district; Bratton picked him up in a small squad car — similar to what would have been bought — with all of his police gear on, and drove over every pot hole he could find all over the city. This direct experience convinced the General Manager that the small squad cars wouldn’t be a good purchase for the officers of the MBTA.

Nothing beats direct, front-line experience. Indeed, Genchi Genbutsu is about experiencing the facts — a reality that is much more true than data.

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Abraham Lincoln on Genchi Genbutsu

admin — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 05:56:03 +0000

A great Genchi Genbutsu Example is Abraham Lincoln and Leadership. This article shows how he applied “go and see”.

I just finished reading the book Lincoln on Leadership. I found it to be an excellent book, highlighting the leadership lessons that made Lincoln one of the most revered and respected people in the world. I highly recommend this book.

Abraham Lincoln’s life, in my view, was a personification of the Toyota Way — his respect for people, his personal tutoring of his followers through effective use of ambiguity and the Socratic approach, and his common sense — all pleasantly reek of Toyota.

To highlight how Lincoln’s demeanor and leadership style captures some of the essence of the Toyota Way, I want to share his general approach with people and how that is really a manifestation of Toyota’s principle of Genchi Genbutsu.

Get Out of the Office

Lincoln once fired one his Generals because the General was “out of touch” with his troops. In Lincoln’s words:

He [General Freemont] is losing the confidence of men near him, whose support any man in his position must have to be successful. His cardinal mistake is that he isolates himself, and allows nobody to see him; and by which he does not know what is going on in the very matter he is dealing with.

Lincoln on Leadership, page 14

Lincoln’s letter, an excerpt of which you find above, is instructive as it is very pointed: Lincoln is teaching while he is correcting. This is a subtle but strong hallmark of a good leader.

Genchi Genbutsu

To illustrate the concept of Genchi Genbutsu, Taiichi Ohno does this well through a distinction he makes between Facts versus Data. In his words,

“The root cause of any problem is the key to a lasting solution,” Ohno used to say. He constantly emphasized the importance of genchi genbutsu, or going to the source,’ and clarifying the problem with one’s own eyes. “Data’ is of course important in manufacturing,” he often remarked, “but I place greatest emphasis on facts.'”

Data is a degree removed from the actual place where the phenomena is happening. In other words, there is a big — but subtle — difference between data that shows how often a machine fails versus being present at the machine and observing it failing. Genchi Genbutsu is about being there and observing the phenomena while it is happening.

Taiichi Ohno placed a greater value on being where the work is done and where value is added. Whereas data is often on a computer screen or on paper. He preferred to be at the source of the phenomena.

Management By Walking Around is not Genchi Genbutsu

Peters, a former Mckinsey-ite, once put forth the notion of Management By Walking Around (MBWA). Management by Walking Around is more about “visiting” and being seen by the people. The intention is, in my view, quite superficial.

On the other hand, Genchi Genbutsu is about knowing, experiencing, and building empathy for those who are in the Gemba. The spirit of Genchi Genbutsu is about knowing first-hand what happens in the Gemba by actually being in the Gemba and participating in the Gemba. The difference is subtle, but stark.

Tom Peters MBWA is not Genchi Genbutsu.

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Toyota Venza Recall: Quality Safety Advisory Board

admin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:28:22 +0000

After a disappointing earnings call where Toyota’s profit dropped by 18%, Toyota announces that they will be recalling 420,000 vehicles because of a crankshaft problem. Specifically,

The safety recall to replace the crankshaft pulley on the V-6 engine affects 283,200 Toyota and 137,000 Lexus vehicles in the U.S., the company said. Worldwide it covers 550,000 cars. [1. source: LA Times, http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-autos-toyota-recall-20111110,0,4042639.story]

This means that total safety recalls by Toyota will bring that number to over 9 million cars recalled. This is disappointing indeed.

In a previous post, we discussed some of Toyota’s global centralization and decentralization challenges as a root cause of their quality problems, today we’ll discuss the second of the findings from the Toyota Quality Advisory Panel. In their opinion, the attention given to outside complains held less importance than complains from within the company.

Please read our series on the findings from the Toyota Quality Advisory Board:

Toyota North American Quality Advisory Panel Conclusions: The high-level summary of the findings from the quality advisory panel.
Balance Between Local and Global Management Control: How can Toyota best balance decision making between Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan and its regional operations in the North America and the world?
Responses to Problems Raised by Internal and External Sources: The panel found that problems raised by sources external to Toyota were not treated as seriously as those found within Toyota. The panel claims that this violates the tenets of the Toyota Production System.
Management Responsibility for Quality and Safety: Because Toyota treated Safety as a subset of Quality, the panel believes that this has led to the blurring of the lines and makes the question Who is Responsible? more difficult to answer; consequently, this has led to the old adage of if everyone is responsible, then nobody is accountable.
The Challenges of Integrating Electronics and Software: Has the integration of software led to safety problems?
Management of Supplier Product Quality: As Toyota becomes more and more decentralized, has Toyota maintained the rigorous supplier quality requirements it once had?

According to the Panel, Toyota held outside feedback in less esteem than feedback from within. In the Panel’s words,

The Panel has observed that Toyota did not adequately apply the key principles of the TPS (Toyota Production System) and the Toyota Way to its management and decision-making practices. The Toyota Way is founded on the core pillars of continuous improvement and respect for people. A fundamental principle of continuous improvement is genchi genbutsu, which means that one must go and see the source of the problem in order to determine its root cause. The Panel feels that Toyota applied this and other aspects of the TPS and the Toyota Way too narrowly in two respects.

Apparently, hubris and pride on Toyota’s part had to do with why feedback was treated differently depending on the source:

First, while it is clear that Toyota applies the TPS process and the Toyota Way to problems or flaws found internally, Toyota does not appear to treat feedback from external sources, including customers, independent rating agencies, and regulators, the same way. For example, it doesn’t appear that Toyota applied genchi genbutsu as quickly and thoroughly as it could have in investigating and seeking out the root causes of customer complaints regarding issues such as UA. On the vehicle assembly line in Toyota factories, when a problem on a vehicle is spotted, any line worker can pull a rope called an andon cord to stop production so that the problem can be quickly fixed. But when external sources have complained about quality and safety issues, it has often taken Toyota too long to pull a metaphorical andon cord and quickly try to solve the problem. Instead, Toyota initially reacted to consumer complaints such as UA, sticky pedals, and other issues with a degree of skepticism and defensiveness.

Continuing, the quality advisory panel points out that Toyota failed to apply TPS to its decision making process, allowing defects in its vehicles to continue despite outside feedback that was largely met with doubt:

Second, Toyota did not apply the principles of TPS and the Toyota Way adequately to identify and avoid repeating management decision-making errors with the same thoroughness and dedication with which it applies them in its manufacturing process. Although Toyota is in the car manufacturing business, it”like most modern corporations”is also a decision factory. Toyota’s reputation in North America increasingly will be based as much on the quality of its decision making as on the quality of its vehicles.

The above conclusion from the quality advisory panel is both pointed and cuts to the core of Toyota. On the one hand, Toyota is well known for its manufacturing rigor, yet on the other hand, the principles the Toyota Production System is founded upon wasn’t applied outside of manufacturing, leading to poor quality problems to continue.

In the next part of our series, we’ll explore the panel’s conclusion on Toyota’s worldview regarding Management Responsibilities for Quality and Safety.

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Shoulders of Giants: Walter Shewhart

admin — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 13:14:07 +0000

On this episode of “Shoulders of Giants”, we remember Walter Shewhart.

Walter Andrew Shewhart (pronounced like “shoe-heart”, March 18, 1891 – March 11, 1967) was an American physicist, engineer and statistician, sometimes known as the father of statistical quality control and the person who developed the Control Chart.

From the late 1930s onwards, Shewhart’s interests expanded out from industrial quality to wider concerns in science and statistical inference. The title of his second book Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control (1939) asks the audacious question: What can statistical practice, and science in general, learn from the experience of industrial quality control?

Shewhart’s approach to statistics was radically different from that of many of his contemporaries. He possessed a strong operationalist outlook, largely absorbed from the writings of pragmatist philosopher C. I. Lewis, and this influenced his statistical practice. In particular, he had read Lewis’s Mind and the World Order many times. Though he lectured in England in 1932 under the sponsorship of Karl Pearson (another committed operationalist) his ideas attracted little enthusiasm within the English statistical tradition. The British Standards nominally based on his work, in fact, diverge on serious philosophical and methodological issues from his practice.

His more conventional work led him to formulate the statistical idea of tolerance intervals and to propose his data presentation rules, which are listed below:

Data have no meaning apart from their context (which is also a key concept of Genchi Genbutsu)
Data contain both signal and noise. To be able to extract information, one must separate the signal from the noise within the data.

Walter Shewhart: Influence

In 1938 his work came to the attention of physicists W. Edwards Deming and Raymond T. Birge. The two had been deeply intrigued by the issue of measurement error in science and had published a landmark paper in Reviews of Modern Physics in 1934. On reading of Shewhart’s insights, they wrote to the journal to wholly recast their approach in the terms that Shewhart advocated.

The encounter began a long collaboration between Shewhart and Deming that involved work on productivity during World War II and Deming’s championing of Shewhart’s ideas in Japan from 1950 onwards. Deming developed some of Shewhart’s methodological proposals around scientific inference and named his synthesis the Shewhart cycle (also know as the PDSA Cycle, PDCA Cycle and Deming Cycle).

During the 1990s, Shewhart’s ideas was put to use by a third generation of industrial managers as they adopt the Six Sigma approach to management. Shewart’s ideas form the basis for a significant portion of Six Sigma statistical methodology.

He died at Troy Hills, New Jersey in 1967.

source: Wikipedia, John Hunter

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Blendtec: Genchi Genbutsu and Visual Management

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:05:37 +0000

We went to Costco last weekend and there was a demonstration for Blendtec Blender – you know, those Blendtec “Will it Blend” viral videos on YouTube with that white-coat crazy scientist Blendtec founder blending everything from brooms to the iPhone.

As a side-note: I met the founder and CEO of Blendtec, Tom Dickson, about 12 months ago – yeah, he’s the white-coat guy that blends everything. He’s really cool and very friendly. Well, about a year later I finally bought one. Here’s a picture of me and the founder:

I have to say that I was very, very impressed with the demonstration. Well, after a few minutes of watching the demonstration, we bought one.

At the demonstration, he made soup – and, get this: the friction of the blade made the soup piping hot! Pretty amazing. The guy demonstrating Blendtec made a bunch of other stuff also that was good.

But here’s the business lesson: during the Blendtec presentation, this is what the presenter said:

Blendtec was designed to be higher than the standard kitchen cupboard so that the customer won’t be able to put it away. The customer has to keep Blendtec on the kitchen counter because our field studies have shown that if the Blendtec Blender is out in the open, it will be used more.

Needless to say, I was impressed by this. In his explanation, he showed an application of Genchi Genbutsu – through their field studies and studying how customers used the Blendtec Blender in their own homes; and also Visual Management, by explaining that if the Blendtec Blender is out in the open, customers will use it more than if the Blendtec Blender was hidden in the kitchen cupboard.

Their manufacturing facility is close to where I live – I’d love to tour their plant someday.

Well, I’m glad we got a Blendtec Blender. I’m looking forward to trying new recipes with this super, duper Blendtec Blender.

Here’s a video of Blendtec eating up the iPhone 4.

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Genchi Genbutsu: Don’t Talk to the Inmates

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:27:54 +0000

I write that title with tongue-in-cheek. But, in some cases, corporate leaders act as if employees are inmates and being seen with and talking with them is not good. This idea runs completely counter to the principle and practice of Genchi Genbutsu, which runs counter to a blaming culture.

Other articles in the Genchi Genbutsu Series:

We finalized the adoption of our baby girl recently. Our 9th child – yes – I don’t blame you for freaking out. When I was younger, I didn’t think I’d be the father of a almost two basketball teams, but I’m grateful. And, adoption has been a blessing.

corporate leaders act as if employees are inmates and being seen with and talking with them is not good. This idea runs completely counter to the principle and practice of Genchi Genbutsu

Anyway – while at the courhouse, I took this picture, which I find so appropriate for this series of articles on Genchi Genbutsu. As a reminder, below are what I find to be the 4 practical reasons and purpose of the management practice and principle of Genchi Genbutsu (Go and See):

Genchi Genbutsu develops your judgment: Go and See helps you make better decisions.
Genchi Genbutsu helps you build agreement and consensus: Go and See helps you form agreement, get people on the same page, and agree on the problem.
Genchi Genbutsu helps you develop empathy: Go and See helps you link high-level thinking with on-the-ground implementation; it helps you feel with the people, which then helps you make better decisions and test hypothesis quicker.
Genchi Genbutsu helps you develop other people: Go and See helps you empower others by stretching them, by teaching them, by helping them with practical application of theory.

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Genchi Genbutsu: Leaders Develop Other Leaders

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:10:15 +0000

It’s often said that Toyota builds people, then it builds cars. To this end, it’s important to consider how Genchi Genbutsu as a principle helps us to develop other people.

Other articles in the Genchi Genbutsu Series:

The final aspect of Genchi Genbutsu I’d like to discuss is how it helps us accomplish the following:

Genchi Genbutsu helps us to develop other people.

Involving people in understanding the problem and at arriving at solutions is a powerful countermeasure to resistance; it is disarming; it is a wonderful way to teach others, to stretch them, and to help others grow, learn, and develop personally and professionally.

By practicing “go and see” and employing socratic methods rather than telling others an answer, we help them to think through problems:

How can we make this better?
If a customer were here, what would he have us do?
If a customer were here, what would she have us stop doing?
Is there a better way to build this product?

These deceptively simple questions, when asked in the right spirit, could fundamentally transform a company, improve the customer experience, and help improve other aspects of the organization.

Genchi Genbutsu, “Go and See”, is a management practice of going to the actual place where the phenomena is happening. But is more than that: it is involving the people there by asking the right questions, in the right spirit, with the goal of involving others in the understanding of the problem and in the development of the solution(s).

And, when others are involved in this manner, they are growing, learning, feel part of something, and developing.

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Genchi Genbutsu Can Help Us Develop Empathy

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:06:56 +0000

When we make decisions, cast judgments, or form an opinion without having observed, talked with, or experienced the situation first hand, it leads to poor decisions. This is why Genchi Genbutsu Go and See is so critical – it helps add clarity where emotion might otherwise cloud it.

Other articles in the Genchi Genbutsu Series:

In this article, I’ll discuss the following aspect of Genchi Genbutsu:

Genchi Genbutsu helps us develop empathy: Go and See helps us link high-level thinking with on-the-ground implementation; it helps us feel with the people, which then helps us make better decisions and test hypothesis quicker.

In business, there’s much discussion about “feedback loops” or “feedforward loops”. The idea is that the faster and quicker feedback is, the better our decisions are. But, most management theorist fail to consider how that feedback is obtained. In their minds, they are usually only talking about data and conclusions.

In Genchi Genbutsu, feedback is obtained through first hand experience. By being at the place where the phenomena is happening AND by being with the people that are dealing with the phenomena, we gain a perspective of what people go through; what they experience. When we “feel with” people, it sharpens our understanding, helps us frame the problem with the right perspective, and arrive at solutions that are more robust and more surgical.

In the next post on Genchi Genbutsu, I’ll address the last aspect of Genchi Genbutsu, which is that Genchi Genbutsu helps us to develop other people.

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Genchi Genbutsu Principle: We Can Us See Problems Clearly

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 10:55:10 +0000

In general, most conflict is based on different perspectives. In business, this means that people see the problem differently. Because people don’t understand the problem the same way, there are arguments and disagreements on the solution. Have you ever experienced this?

Other articles in the Genchi Genbutsu Series:

Genchi Genbutsu counteracts the situation above by the following:

Genchi Genbutsu helps to gain agreement on the problem; genchi genbutsu helps to get everyone on “the same page”.

Consider this picture below (credit to Stephen Covey):

What do you see? A young, beautiful woman? Or, do you see an old woman? Do you see both?

Genchi Genbutsu helps us to understand a phenomena the same way. And, by understanding the problem together, the problem can then be framed properly. With agreement on the problem, there will be less quibbling about the solution(s) or countermeasure(s).

In the next post on this series on Genchi Genbutsu, I’ll cover the aspect of how Genchi Genbutsu can help us develop empathy.

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Lean Six Sigma Safety Management: An Example from Toyota

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:44:04 +0000

Lean Six Sigma Safety Management: An Example from Toyota is an article showing how Toyota applies Genchi Genbutsu towards safety efforts.

Kristen Tabar, General Manager, Electronic Systems at the Toyota Technical Center is taking a number of press, analyst, and automotive reporters on a week long behind the scenes tour of Toyota and their efforts toward safer and higher quality vehicles.

In her words,

One of the great guiding traditions here at Toyota is genchi genbutsu, which roughly translates into go and see where work is done in order to gain fuller understanding. Very much in that spirit, Toyota is conducting a safety and quality news media tour of our global headquarters in Japan this week.

This tour will offer a group of about a dozen top-level automotive reporters and analysts a deep dive into a wide variety of Toyota’s safety and quality processes, including our company’s technology, innovation, procedures and plants. Specifically, it was designed to provide an unprecedented level of behind-the-scenes access to the nuts and bolts of how Toyota helps ensure the safety and quality of its vehicles in engineering and development.

I’m particularly looking forward to visiting what many consider to be the most advanced automotive facility in the world, the Higashi-Fuji Technical Center. Here, we will try out a NASA-style driving simulator and witness a vehicle crash test, among other activities. It promises to be pretty big on the wow factor.

Over the next several days, I’ll be posting stories about some of our experiences and the things I am learning. I look forward to sharing them with you.

You can follow her daily blog post on that behind the scenes tour of Toyota.

Kristen Tabar refers to Genchi Genbutsu as a guiding tradition – very appropriate indeed.

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Genchi Genbutsu Can Help Us Develop Better Judgment

admin — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 11:41:05 +0000

Being abstracted from the real thing leads to poor decisions. As leaders, we lead, we teach, and we make decisions. But in doing so, we need help to sharpen our judgment so that we can learn to make better decisions.

Other articles in the Genchi Genbutsu Series:

The first aspect I outlined in my first article on Genchi Genbutsu is that:

Genchi Genbutsu develops our judgment.

Let’s look at the following situations where Genchi Genbutsu and the aspect of developing our judgement could be applied:

You are a software engineer. But between you and the customer, there is a project manager, business analyst, and a requirements analyst. Those three acts as “proxy” or “surrogate” for the customer.
You are an executive in your company, but you make all your decisions from a conference room or boardroom. In fact, most of the people in your company have not seen you step outside your office, cubicle.
You are in the military – in a combat zone. You trust your subordinates and you rely completely on their reports of the situation. But, you are in a comfortable, air conditioned “war room”, while your people are in actual war. True, you must be protected and away from harm since you are a commissioned leader, but the reports of your subordinates could be clouded by their bias and by their near-sighted perspective. And, because they see you comfortable while they are not, that could undermine their trust in you.
You are a scientist working in a “big pharma” pharmaceutical drug manufacturer. You value objectivity and, as a scientist, that makes sense. You are developing a drug for a bipolar disorder, but you actually have never met or observed any human with bipolar disorder.

Looking at the examples above, it is clear what the state of management is currently. Yet, the aspect of developing our judgment through the practice of Genchi Genbutsu counteracts poor decisions that could be made by being distant and abstracted from the real situation.

In the next post, I’ll cover the second aspect of Genchi Genbutsu – gaining agreement and consensus on the problem.

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