7 Steps to Implement a Gemba Walk Structure
| Audience: | Manufacturing and Healthcare Executives, Lean Management and Continuous Improvement Professionals, Operational Leaders and Safety Officers |
| Last updated: | August 26, 2025 |
| Read time: | 2 min |
- Define structure & roles: Update the organizational chart, assign responsibilities, and align team leaders through an introduction meeting.
- Create routines & tools: Use checklists, standard schedules, and recurring Gemba Walks to identify waste and monitor performance consistently.
- Drive improvement & sustainment: Train leaders, hold weekly improvement meetings, and set measurable goals to embed continuous improvement into daily operations.
How to Implement a Gemba Walk Structure?
- Organizational chart
The first step is to put the company’s organizational chart up to date to determine who oversees what department (and who). The best tool to do so is probably Visio from Microsoft, but Lucidchart can do the job just fine for free. It is critical to define clear roles and responsibilities at this stage.
- Introduction meeting
The top executive holds a meeting with all the team leaders, presenting the Gemba Walk and explaining why it’s useful for them. This step is vital to reduce resistance to change.
- Set-up Gemba Walk checklists
In collaboration with each team leaders, create a list of verification points that they must validate with every work units in their department every two hours. Always remember, these checklists must aim to identify and reduce waste. It is important that the workers know that the Team leaders are performing these Gemba Walks to help them and find solutions, not to punish them.
- Standard schedule
Set-up a recurring 4 times per day event in the team leaders’ schedule so that they don’t forget to do their Gemba walks. For level 2 management, a Gemba Walk should be performed twice per day.
- Effective Gemba walk training
Shadow every team leaders’ Gemba walk individually at least once a week to make sure they carry it out in the right way.
- Schedule improvement meetings
At least once a week, set a recurring meeting in the team leaders’ schedule to be carried out with the plant manager. The goal of this meeting is to follow up on improvement plans that are in progress and create new ones from the new improvement opportunities they found during the past week. Your team leaders might tell you they don’t have time, but they must understand they’ll save time by preventing problems through Gemba Walks rather than solving them after they happen.
- Sustain the Gemba
Remember, we are trying to achieve continuous improvement, which means these practices should be carried out every day. We strongly recommend setting goals for how many new improvement opportunities each team leaders should come up with every week. We recommend setting the goal to 2 new improvement opportunities per week per team leader.
Free eBook: Gemba Walk Implementation on the Factory Floor
Gemba Walks: 12 Steps, Checklists & Templates
- What is a Gemba Walk?
- Why perform Gemba Walks?
- How to implement Gemba Walks in your organization?
- How to perform effective Gemba Walks?
- A standard schedule for Gemba Walks.
- 2 Gemba Walk templates.
- How to digitize Gemba Walks.
FAQ: How to Implement a Gemba Walk Structure
A Gemba Walk is a Lean management practice where leaders regularly visit the workplace (“the Gemba”) to observe processes, engage with employees, identify waste, and encourage continuous improvement.
Implementing a Gemba Walk structure helps ensure accountability, prevents recurring problems, aligns management with frontline teams, and supports a culture of continuous improvement.
Preparation starts with updating the organizational chart, defining clear roles and responsibilities, holding an introduction meeting, and setting up customized checklists with team leaders.
Team leaders should conduct Gemba Walks four times per day, while level 2 managers should perform them twice daily. Regularity ensures proactive problem detection instead of reactive firefighting.
Key tools include organizational charts, customized checklists for verification points, standard schedules for reminders, and templates for documenting observations and improvements.
By identifying deviations, capturing improvement opportunities, holding weekly improvement meetings, and setting measurable goals, Gemba Walks create a structured process for ongoing operational excellence.
Avoid using Gemba Walks as inspections to punish employees, skipping scheduled walks, or failing to follow up on identified opportunities. The focus should always remain on support and improvement.
Latest articles
- Hoshin Kanri: Lean Planning Method to Align Goals and Daily Tasks
- Muda, Mura, and Muri: The Toyota 3M Model Explained
- The 8 Wastes of Lean: How to Eliminate Hidden Inefficiencies
- Top 12 Lean Manufacturing Tools You Should Master in 2025
- Short Interval Control: The Secret to Real-Time Efficiency
- A3 Problem-Solving: A Step-by-Step Guide for 2025
