Work That Makes Sense: Operator-Led Visuality

by Gwendolyn D. Galsworth

Work That Makes Sense, winner of the prestigious Shingo Research Prize, is Gwendolyn Galsworth’s eagerly-awaited book on how to implement, coach, support, and sustain visual inventiveness on the operator-level. The result? A 15%-30% gain in throughput and a spirited, engaged, and aligned work culture.Alice Lee, VP/Business Transformation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/ “This exceptional book takes a fresh approach—viewing the workplace and how to make it visual through the eyes of value-add associates, written as if Dr. Galsworth is sitting with us—instructing, coaching, and guiding us through a visual conversion a page at a time."Robert Miller, Executive Director of The Shingo Prize "Dr. Galsworth continues to produce work in perfect harmony with The Shingo Prize model, with visual concepts, tools, and methods that are essential as companies pursue operational excellence. I recommend Work That Makes Sense to every reader.” Richard Schonberger, author of nine award-winning books on operations excellence, “Gwendolyn Galsworth, the world’s foremost visual workplace expert, has not just written a fine book about making operations visual and taking the frustrations away from working people, she (alone among writers on this subject) has detailed what it takes to make that a system." Brent Allen, VP/Operations at Lifetime Products (Salt Lake City), “I’ve been a student of management for 30 years, read countless management books and gone to innumerable conferences. I have never found a better, more powerful system of transformation than Galsworth’s. This comes through on every page of this book. She does that better than anybody.”

252 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 2013

Reviews

[Nichole Naprstek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is chock full of examples of how to implement visual workplace into your environment. It might take some imagination since most of the examples are in warehouses but it's worth the read.

[Bob Wallner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to start by saying I am a big fan of the Author. I enjoyed reading Visual Workplace, I think her radio program is very good and I have gotten to hear her speak on a couple occasions. Dr. Galsworth is definitely passionate about visual thinking and I don't know a more qualified person to write a book on the topic.

Work That Makes Sense was supposed to engage the front line employees. It was supposed to spark them into become I-Lead visual thinkers. I respectively don't think she conveys that. Though the foundations are spot on, I think the book is too wordy for a book on visual thinking. At times the book seems to talk in circles. I would have liked to see more analogies. Example at the end when she talks about the 4 levels of error proofing she uses the train analogy - PERFECT!

Not to sound offensive, but I know from being a long time listener to Dr. Galsworth that sometimes her mind works faster than her mouth and sometimes she tends to "jump around". Maybe it was this bias, but I felt at times the book did the same thing. I think an editor should have picked this up and called a time out.

I really think this would have been better if written more as a workbook and less as a text.