Description

Airbus Defence and Space is part of the Airbus Group, a world-leading defense aircraft provider. This case analyzes the best practices of using Gemba Walks as one of the Lean Leadership principles, embedded in the company’s lean strategy. Their lean journey began in 2011 with the desire to improve the management’s and associates’ capabilities. In 2013, Gemba Walks were implemented as a way for managers to become aware of the problems their workforce identifies, and to accelerate the top and middle management involvement. Gemba Walks are now well-defined and rolled out across the company with the support of lean experts and change agents, achieving remarkably high involvement levels and empowering employees to implement improvement actions.