Gemba kaizen : a commonsense low-cost approach to management

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 show more 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. show less