The following is the second of two excerpts from Visual Workplace-Visual Thinking, by Gwendolyn D. Galsworth, Ph.D. The first excerpt, which ran in May, introduced some of the ways in which the visual workplace complements and helps sustain gains in lean manufacturing.
A visual workplace is populated by hundreds, even thousands, of visual devices and mini-systems invented by a workforce that knows how to think "visually," i.e., how to recognize wasted motion and the information deficits that cause it. At the heart of visual thinking is a set of principles called the Eight Building Blocks of Visual Thinking. These include things like "I-Driven Change" and the lean concepts of work, motion and standards. They also include the idea of the "Value Field," i.e., the place where an individual is able to add true value.