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60 The PCB Magazine • May 2015 to "miss the forest because of the trees," as the saying goes. Visual Management I am a big fan of meaningful visual man- agement everywhere possible to keep employ- ees engaged, informed and foster a culture of ownership. Noticed my emphasis of the word "meaningful" when talking about visual man- agement; what I mean by this is avoiding at all costs a wallpaper strategy of posting gratuitous charts, graphs, reports, etc., on walls to impress customers. The gemba walk provides a great op- portunity to notice and question posted mea- sures and charts and ask the following ques- tions: •What is this chart telling me? •Who is responsible for updating them? •Do the employees look at the charts? How often? •What value do the charts have for employees? •Do customers and/or suppliers ever look at the charts? •Do the charts have an overall effect on operations? The key to any process improvement is to question everything; do not just accept the status quo. Whether you manage by walking around, engage in gemba walks, or utilize some other method of going to where the work is done, the key is to get out of your office and go and see. PCB steve williams is the president of steve williams Consulting llC and the former strategic sourc- ing manager for Plexus Corp. He is the author of the books, Quality 101 Handbook and sur- vival is not Mandatory: 10 Things every Ceo should Know about lean. To read past col- umns, or to contact williams, click here. realtimewith.com CliCk To View VidEo intErViEw all Flex VP of sales and Mar- keting, Dave Becker, tells Kelly Dack, "it's not about the technology." He discuss- es the five core values that are part of the culture at all Flex, and as a final point, Becker explains how "cul- ture beats strategy." Five Keys for Success in PCB Manufacturing by Real Time with... IPC APEX EXPO 2015 BEST PrACTICES 101, PArT 7 continues Point oF ViEw