Friday, October 14, 2011

Standardized Work . . . What is it?


In the Lean world many are confused on what Standardized Work is and what it can do for you.  Do realize this came from Toyota.  The definition I use from Toyota is:  Work that is organized around human motion that creates an efficient production sequence without Muda.  (Click here for Toyota’s exact definition.)   It is made up of three elements:  Takt-time, work sequence, and standard in-process stock.  The definition is simple, yet many complicate it.  Also note my training from TSSC (Toyota Production System Support Center) and their Toyota representatives, specifically went out of their way to state “standardized work” and not to say “standard work”.

Standardized work is not a guarantee you will produce quality.  What you are doing is base lining the process for problem solving, and improving your chance to repeat the process.  Variation is always present.  Your aim is to understand and minimize the variation in the widest process window possible that produces something acceptable to the customer.  Standardized work is a repeatable process that assists in controlling variation in the process.  Standardized work helps in identifying waste.

I have watched some of Deming’s lectures on DVD.  I have a few more to complete.  One thing I keep walking away with is Deming mocking Standardized Work and Work Standards as providing quality.  This is because “true values do not exist”.  If it happens, it is random.  It is not repeatable.  Deming also has stated “uncontrolled variation produces low quality”.  Standardized Work does help control some of the variation.

“Where there is no standard, there can be no kaizen.” – Taiichi Ohno

Standardized work is the base line, the bench mark, for continual improvement, and I will add I use the concept in problem solving.  In problem solving we need to know the base line condition in order to determine if we have a problem or not, and whether we are “improving to” or “improving from”. 

The definition of a problem I like to use is: The difference between what is and what should be.  There is way to look at a problem too.  Are you correcting something or improving something (the “to” or “from”).  And yet there is also a way to look at the problems potential.  Is it sporadic or chronic?  Each of them shares similar if not the same problem solving techniques.

Generally we look at problem solving as “what went wrong”.  Sometimes we may need to ask “what needs to go right”, is standardized work still in place?  In either case, we need a bench mark to compare, to do a gap analysis from “what it is” to “what it should be”, or “current state” to “future state”, or “where I am now” to “where I want to be”.

Standardized work does involve some forms, time studies, calculations, charting, however you go to the extent necessary to visualize waste.  At the initial start of standardized work I recommend you start at the high level activity within the cycle of work.  There will be plenty to keep you busy, developing the work sheets and training personnel on how to standardize their work sequence, and then for the personnel to question “why did I do that out of sequence” in order to identify problems.  As you improve the process, you can then drill down into more detail, uncovering more waste in the process.  I would like to highlight that the forms are important, however I am not mentioning them here because more important is the philosophy of a repeatable process, one that you can see waste as it happens, and to kaizen out that waste.

So what is it? – Work that is organized around human motion that creates an efficient production sequence without Muda.  It is that simple.  Oh, and also add it is a good baseline for problem solving.

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