In part one of this series, we discussed the importance of the Gemba walk and how well executed and thought out Gemba Walks can drive sustained Continuous Improvement. Great Gemba Walks become a focused process whereby leadership engages with various parts of the organization to observe, learn, and provide support to meet organizational goals and objectives and more importantly, the needs of its customers. Leadership is observing, learning, and engaging where value is being created, and teaching the team members to be problem solvers to achieve continuous improvement.

An original article from the NIST Manufacturing Innovation Blog.

The lean manufacturing movement came out of a desire to reduce waste and inefficiencies and improve productivity in the operation. Many manufacturers have also benefited from the resulting continuous improvement mindset as engaged employees became empowered to change things for the better.

This article will focus on technology as well as Training Within Industry - Job Instruction (TWI-JI) module to capture standardized work.

The challenge: The onboarding process is challenging. The primary reason is two-fold.

First, if tasks are documented, they are usually written and describe the steps in the process. However, the onboarding process is much more than tasks. It involves a logical format that often uses more sensory input to be successful (e.g. vision or audio). Only, providing a written document for training has limited effectiveness as it does not consider all sensory input. Different individuals capture knowledge differently. Providing multiple methods or considering different sensory inputs will provide a more effective educational session.

Coauthored by Rick Wrinkler and Greg Thompson.

Standard work means determining and documenting the ideal process to produce correct and consistent results. It represents the best sequence and the most efficient methods to perform a process. It is considered a way to achieve the highest possible degree of consistency in any process. The purpose is to ensure that everything is done by everyone in a similar manner and carry out the work that achieves the highest quality, best service, and lowest cost possible.

In the world of Lean Manufacturing, this definition and adherence to Standard Work has resulted in positive, repeatable results in a variety of industries. In today’s Covid-19 environment,  practitioners with years of experience in industry strongly believe that Standard Work will and should be one of the foundational tools to develop, implement, and maintain strategies to combat the Coronavirus in a manufacturing environment.

Written by Rick Winkler, IMEC Technical Specialist 

Throughout my 20+year journey with continuous improvement, I’ve helped individuals experience a wide array of necessary “tools” for executing lean continuous improvement (CI). But none are perhaps more integral for success than standard work.

Standard work is likely the most powerful—but least used—lean tool available for individuals and organizations hoping to make change and inspire efficiency improvements. By documenting the current best practice, standard work creates the baseline for kaizen or continuous improvement events. It is important to understand that the baseline standard created initially is expected to be improved upon (hence continuous improvement); the new standard becomes the baseline for further improvements, and on and on.