Gemba Kaizen - ENGINEERING.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first edition of Gemba Kaizen was born out of 10 years of teaching
kaizen, following the publication of my book Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s
Competitive Success in 1986. The second edition of Gemba Kaizen comes 15
years after the original publication, and much has changed in the world. I
have been fortunate to see the transforming effect of kaizen on people and
organizations worldwide over the past three decades.
I wish to recognize and thank everyone who has taken up kaizen. The
many cases and explanations of kaizen which are documented in this second
edition are the fruits of the many workers, engineers, administrators, nurses,
officials, managers and professionals who practice continuous improvement
and were engaged in gemba kaizen at our clients’ sites around the world.
This book is truly a result of teamwork, collaboration and the kaizen spirit
at work.
I would like to thank those people who assisted in writing the cases in
the first edition of this book. They include Kevin Meyer of Specialty
Silicone, and Arthur Byrne of J.W. Childs, Inc., Iwao Sumoge of Densho
Engineering, Joao-Paulo Oliveira of Bosch, Natacha Muro and Fernando
Coletti of La Buenos Aires, Nestor Herrerra of Molinos Rio de la Plata, Gary
Buchanan and Valerie Oberle of Disney University, Darla Hastings of
Quality Inc., Shoji Shiratori of Aisin Seiki, and Yutaka Mori of Toyoda
Automatic Loom Works as well as Yoshikazu Sano and Katsuo Inoue of
Toyoda Machine Works.
Besides those whose names appear in the book, I am particu larly
indebted to Professor Zenjiro Sawada at Kurume University, who gave me
the inspiration for the House of Gemba Management through his book
Visual Control of Factory Management (published in English in 1991 from
Nikkan Kogyo Shinbun); Ichiro Majima, Dean of Faculty of Business
Administration of Miyazaki Sangyo Keiei University, who provid ed much
valuable information in writing this book; Kaizen con sultants Kenji
Takahashi, Yukio Kakiuchi, and many others who worked together with us
in giving many gemba kaizen sessions at the clients’ sites around the world.
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