Gemba Kaizen Quotes

“The essence of 5S is to follow what has been agreed on. It begins with discarding what we don’t need in the gemba (seiri) and then arranging all the necessary items in the gemba in an orderly manner (seiton). Then a clean environment must be sustained so that we can readily identify abnormalities (seiso), and these three steps must be maintained on a continuous basis (shitsuke).”
― Masaaki Imai, Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy

“Hence the five golden rules of gemba management: 1. When a problem (abnormality) arises, go to the gemba first. 2. Check the gembutsu (“relevant objects”). 3. Take temporary countermeasures on the spot. 4. Find the root cause. 5. Standardize to prevent recurrence. Go”
― Masaaki Imai, Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy

“People within a company can be divided into two groups: those who earn money and those who don’t. Only those frontline people who develop, produce, and sell products are earning money for the company. The ideal company would have only one person who does not earn money—the president—leaving the rest of the employees directly involved in revenue-generating activity.”
― Masaaki Imai, Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy

“Quality begins when everybody in the organization commits to never sending rejects or imperfect information to the next process.”
― Masaaki Imai, Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy