The Winson Group Gemba Walk

Last month the Winson Group held a Gemba site walk workshop at our Brisbane head office. Hosted by Best Practice Workplace, the workshop was attended by internal Winson Group leaders from both insignia and our sister company Signet. Also in attendance were guests from leading Australian businesses including Laminex, Mylan, SLQ, O'Brien Glass and Fletcher Glass.

Gemba is a Japanese team meaning the "real place". The Gemba walk is a best practice approach, which encourages leaders to go to the real place where value is created. For example within insignia, the Gemba is our label manufacturing facility.

In lean manufacturing, a Gemba walk encourages leaders to reconnect and regularly be present to observe the work of their business when and where it takes place. By spending their time with staff members where value is created, leaders gain vital insights and an understanding of front-line employee's experiences within their work environment. This could include the services that are being provided, current workplace challenges and also opportunities for continuous improvement across internal processes.

A regular workplace Gemba walk offers leaders access to transparent and unmediated knowledge that is needed to challenge and validate assumptions made by data. A Gemba walk is beneficial as it provides the opportunity for leaders to interact with frontline employees and understand their challenges, address the root cause, and make changes for the better.

As part of our growth excellence journey, this best practice approach has been utilised by leaders within the Winson Group for some time. Our leadership team gained insights from the Gemba workshop and will continue to use this leadership style to guide their decisions and overall enhance our customer's experience. "The Gemba site walk reinvigorated our leadership team and provided our external guest vital insights on the power of getting out of the office and to the real place where value is created," affirms Brad Jeavons, Winson Group Continuous Improvement Manager.

About the Winson Group

The Winson Group is built on a strong foundation of family values, and has evolved to incorporate both insignia and Signet over the past 50 years. While we are proud of our heritage as a collective body, our focus is squarely on the future – striving for growth through excellence by continually investing in our people and improving our processes. We believe that the key to success for our growth excellence journey is our people, diligently striving to create value for our customers and helping them compete on a global scale.