Gemba: more than a word, a philosophy

Gemba is a Japanese word that describes where action takes place and value is created, from the factory floor to dealerships to customer facilities. It is the place where UD people interact with their customers, so the Japanese will talk about ‘their gemba’ and ‘their customers’ gemba’. Wherever it is, gemba is a place to listen and understand, to seek out opportunities for improvement.

Watch below the Gemba Spirit video featuring UD Trucks employees from Japan.

Watch the video

2:32

UD gemba spirit is the professional, passionate and dependable spirit of the UD people. It is the will to roll up sleeves and provide a solution. It is being close to the ground to identify the essentials and the driving force that allows us to excel at them.

What can the UD Gemba Spirit do for you?

Quality
What our mechanics and customer advisors do every day, our executive, engineering and design teams also do. For example, when UD Trucks needed to rethink its offices to allow for expansion, it decided to position its new headquarters and design studio at the heart of the Ageo manufacturing plant. This way, everybody working at UD Trucks headquarters is within walking distance of the factory. It makes constant feedback much easier to collect, and constant improvement easier to implement.

Understanding
Gemba spirit is in every piece of work at UD Trucks, every office, and every service center around the world. Every day, our workers, our engineers, our service advisors, go to gemba, to observe, understand, and take the most appropriate actions. Every day, each UD gemba person learns from the other and from our customers.

Peace of mind
UD Trucks offers you ultimate dependability for you to maximize uptime and keep your business rolling under all circumstances. Besides the dedication and hard work of UD people at the customer centers, we keep our internal organization flexible and responsive to guarantee we have the spare parts you need, the advice you seek.

Flexibility
From your gemba and your experience, our gemba people collect information to help us design the best trucks and offer the most adapted services. Moreover, our trucks can be customized to your spec, for your needs.

Responsiveness
Proximity with you, understanding of your business and close cooperation between our after sales, manufacturing, engineering, and design departments allow us to answer your needs and requests in a quick manner, and take the most appropriate action when an unplanned situation arises.

Gemba Spirit: In UD’s DNA

The gemba spirit at UD has been there since the birth of the company.

Gemba story: technology

Let us share the real story from an employee in the technology gemba!

Gemba story: mechanic

It is important to acquire new knowledge every day and stay ahead of all the new technologies that come out so frequently nowadays.

Gemba story: technical support

The UD Gemba Spirit shapes the way we work at UD; we combine our knowledge and experience to solve an issue most effectively.

Gemba story: maintenance tech

Gemba is the uncompromising craftsmanship that requires responsibility and excellent execution.

Gemba story: line leader

The determination to deliver the best trucks to customers is still strongly encouraged to this day.

Gemba story: service advisor

Gemba is the first point of contact, between customers and a customer center.

Gemba story: quality engineer

UD Gemba Spirit means continuously going the extra mile to support our customers.