Glossary

What is a gemba walk?

Also called: gemba, go and see

Definition

Last updated October 2026

A gemba walk is a lean practice in which managers go to the place where the work is done, the gemba, to watch the process, ask the people doing it questions and look for waste and problems. It is about understanding the process and supporting the team, not inspecting or criticising individuals.

In more detail

Gemba is Japanese for “the real place”. The idea is that reports and dashboards only show part of the picture, and the best way to understand a process is to see it. A walk usually has a theme, such as safety, quality or flow, and follows the process from start to finish.

Good walks are regular, short and respectful: the leader asks open questions, listens more than talks, and notes what to follow up rather than fixing things on the spot. The follow-up is what makes people take the next walk seriously.

Example

Every Tuesday a plant manager walks the packing line with the shift lead, with flow as this week’s theme. She asks why cartons queue at the labeller, learns the printer jams on one carton size, and agrees with the maintenance lead to look at it by Friday.

Gemba walks in CheckFlow

In CheckFlow a gemba walk can run as a weekly checklist with prompts for each stop on the walk, fields for observations and photos, and each follow-up raised as a task attached to the checklist, with an owner and a due date, so it shows in the Tasks Grid until it is closed.

Manufacturing checklist software