New Shop Floor Management: Empowering People for Continuous Improvement, Suzaki Kiyoshi

The role of management today, Suzaki argues, is to eliminate its own responsibilities by thinking of the organization from the genba, or shop floor, point of view. In this challenge, Suzaki claims, organizations need to collect the wisdom of people by practicing Glass Wall Management, where organizations become transparent, enabling employees to contribute maximum creativity as opposed to blocking their potential with what he calls Brick Wall Management. Further, to empower individuals to selfmanage their work and satisfy their customers, Suzaki asserts that they all should learn to manage their own mini-company, where everybody is considered president of his or her area of responsibility.