Standard work is one of the cornerstone’s of lean that many companies overlook which can later come back to haunt them. 5S, set-up reduction, value stream mapping, cells, etc… all have immediate benefits when implemented correctly. The benefits are most times visual; you can see where the waste is being eliminated.
We’ve documented increases of better than fifty percent in productivity by simply implementing 5S alone. Add to that double digit percentage reductions in set up time, reduction in batch sizes (WIP) using takt time and kanban, double digit reductions in lead time and no wonder folks never get to standard work.
Why should you care if you ever get to standard work? Standard work provides the base line information on each job so that you have a basis for making improvements in the future. The often painstaking and time consuming job of documenting is many times put off to when there is time in the future. There are other problems with initiating standard work as well that are not quite as obvious.
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The following was overheard in a break room.
“I’m not going back to that class today. You?” Marty asked Linda as he finished up his soda.
“Not if you’re not. Did you tell Tom you weren’t going back?” Linda asked.
“I had a long talk with Tom about a lot of things at lunch. I told him there is no way I’m going to spend time writing things down or training anybody else because that doesn’t help me earn my bonus,” Marty said.
“I was thinking the same thing. What did Tom say?” Linda asked.
“He said not to sweat it. He wasn’t sure what or if this applied to us at all but that no matter what the bonus was going to be there. If the supervisor doesn’t know about how this stuff is supposed to work I don’t see why we have to sit through it,” Marty said.
“Amen.” Linda said as she put her feet up on the chair next to her to wait the twenty-five minutes to quitting time.
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Standard Work is difficult to start and impossible to sustain if you don’t have effective teams in place. To test and document the best methods of doing a job will require team members to communicate effectively which they may not be doing today. The key in making this transition is training the supervisor as their leadership/coaching skills will be called on and tested if this transition is to be successful. Standard work is a direct link to your capability to eliminate waste in the future and the supervisor must lead this effort on the front lines.
STANDARD WORK: PROCESS DISCIPLINE
Consistency- Standardize and document how to run the line and train all operators in the standardized procedures.
Statistical Control- Train teams in SPC (Statistical Process Control) methods to identify variability and their root cause. Any changes to a process should be documented and supported by verifiable and repeatable data.
Capability Improvements- Teams must accept ownership of the processes and accept responsibility for making improvements.
Considerations: It’s probable that the team will need assistance in documenting the processes they own, especially early on. Consider a shared resource to assist in creating the initial documentation or maintaining it.
To capture the best method for a particular job consider videotaping the job in order to assist in documenting. This can be especially useful when there is the possibility of several conditions that determine the next action to be taken.
Just as you should score 5S efforts, include standard work in the scoring matrix.
Check Your Consistency:
- After a shift change does anyone ever make “adjustments” to the line to make it run better?
- If a front end was inspected by all of the people who make them, would one or more of those people ever arrive at different decisions about the quality?
- Are there any operations that do not have a clear written description of the correct way to do the job and which detail all the correct settings for each of the adjustable variables?
- Are there any operations which do not get randomly audited by an independent, knowledgeable person to assure the operation is being run according to procedure?
- Do you ever have an operator performing a segment of your process who has not received prior training on the specific equipment using the written procedures?
- Are there any operations in your process where the assigned personnel would not set them up or troubleshoot them in the same way?
- Are there ever any changes to the process which are instituted without supporting data either from experiments or from carefully gathered process data?
- Are there any changes made on your processes which do not have a written proposal that is reviewed for the logic to justify the intended action?
Picking the low hanging fruit from one lean activity can be eye opening. The real benefits are seen over time and you begin to improve upon your previous improvements and involving your suppliers. It will be very difficult to achieve this step if you haven’t left yourself a paper trail about the process and improvements made previously. In fact, the larger possibility exists that you will repeat the same mistakes you made in the past. Standard work is the antidote and is well worth the effort to take on the lean journey.
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Everest Consulting Group may be able to assist you in implementing the conceptsdescribed in The Kaizen Revolution or The Journey To Teams at your company.Click on www.everestcg.com to learn more or send us an email us at ecg@everestcg.com
