What ironic term describes the practice of business executives visiting the factory floor or other front-line work, abbreviated to MBWA?
Gemba Gemba In lean manufacturing, the idea of "genba" is that the problems are visible, and the best improvement ideas will come from going to the "genba." The "gemba" walk, much like Management By Walking Around (MBWA), is an activity that takes management to the front lines to look for waste and opportunities to practice "genba kaizen," or practical shop floor improvement. In quality management, "genba" means the manufacturing floor and the idea is that if a problem occurs, the engineers must go there to understand the full impact of the problem, gathering data from all sources. Unlike focus groups and
Front line of "foremost part of an army" in the mid-14th century, which, in turn, led the word to take on the meaning "field of operations in contact with the enemy" in the 1660s. That sense led to the phrase home front, which first appeared in 1919. The attributive adjective version of the term front line (as in "our front-line personnel") describes materiel or personnel intended for or actively in forward use: at sea, on land or in the air: "at" the front line. In both the naval and land campaigns of World War I, FEBAs, FLOTs and FLETs could often be