Visual Workplace Visual Thinking ─ Creating Enterprise Excellence Through the Technologies of the Visual Workplace

Visual Workplace/Visual Thinking (VWVT) was written by the acknowledged leading expert in workplace visuality. Though other books touch upon visual workplace tools and practices, no other author has addressed the topic with the clarity and depth presented here. This is a seminal book, considered by many the definition of the field itself. Also unique to this book are the hundreds of photographic examples of actual visual solutions, in full color.

Visual Workplace/Visual Thinking was self-published in 2005 through the author’s company imprint Visual-Lean® Enterprise Press. It won the Shingo Research Prize the same year.

It was then and remains the only book of its kind, describing a comprehensive visual workplace model derived from on-site research in some of the world’s best and most challenging companies. This means that VWVT is written not by an academic but by a hands-on practitioner who has worked for more than three decades directly with companies in some phase of the journey to workplace visuality. This usually starts with 5S and then moves to visual standards, visual scheduling, visual material control, visual metrics, visual problem solving, visual leadership, visual machine®, and the visual-lean®office—to name several of the segments of the book’s main model, called The Ten Doorways.

VWVT is also distinctive in offering over 200 full-color visual solutions and some 50 figures as supporting, illustrative material.

After an introduction from Peter Dobbs, head of strategy at Rolls-Royce, and Sherrie Ford, US culture guru, the book’s eight chapters unfold. Chapters 1-4 introduce the core concepts on which the model is based. The next three chapters map each part of the model. The eighth and concluding chapter describes the visual-lean® alliance, positioning the visual workplace as lean’s powerful partner. This 224-page book also has a comprehensive index and a complete table of figures and photos.

Recognized as a foremost visual workplace expert, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth has been implementing visuality for over 30 years in some of the world’s best and most complex companies. As a hands-on implementer, coach, and author, she has focused on codifying the visual workplace—its concepts, principles, and technologies—into a single, coherent sustainable framework of knowledge and know-how.

Galsworth leads full-company visual conversions, trains trainers, and conducts visual site assessments. She also frequently leads live coaching clinics and public and on-site seminars, in addition to supporting a network of licensed visual workplace affiliates. In 2014, Galsworth and her developmental team began to convert her courses into on-demand training systems so that companies like yours can become self-sufficient in teaching and supporting the visual workplace.

Dr. Galsworth founded Visual Thinking Inc. (originally Quality Methods International) in 1991 as a base for her client work and hands-on research. In 2005, she launched The Visual-LeanR Institute where in-house trainers and external consultants are trained and certified in the Institute’s nine core visual workplace methods—so they can train and implement visuality in their own companies or with their own clients.

She is author of seven books on workplace visuality and strategic improvement, two of which have won the coveted Shingo Prize. With some 70,000 listeners per month and now in its fifth year, her weekly radio show, The Visual Workplace, has produced a library of over 150 podcasts.