Standard work is the current best way to do a job, written down. Not the ideal way, and not the way the procedure described it five years ago. The way the job is done best today, agreed by the people who do it.
It has three parts:
- Takt time: the pace the customer needs: available working time divided by customer demand. For example, 27,000 seconds of work time in a shift and 900 parts needed gives a takt of 30 seconds.
- Work sequence: the steps in the order that works best, with the time each one takes.
- Standard work in process: the smallest amount of material that has to be at the station for the work to flow.
Without a standard, every shift does the job a little differently. Results move around, and when something goes wrong you can't tell whether the process failed or the method changed. With a standard, a problem shows up as a gap between what should happen and what did.
Standard work is also the baseline for improvement. Taiichi Ohno put it this way: where there is no standard, there can be no kaizen. Improve a job without updating the standard, and the improvement leaves with the next new hire.
Two things make it stick. The people who do the job write it with you, because a standard handed down from the office gets ignored. And it stays short and visual: photos, key points, and the reason behind each key point. Nobody reads a long SOP at the line.
When people don't follow the standard, don't start with blame. Ask why. Find out if the standard is wrong, out of date or impossible at the pace. A bad process will beat a good person every single time.
Your action for today
Pick one short, repeated task. Watch two different people do it and time each step. Note every place they do it differently. Then ask them which way is better, and why.
A free standard work sheet to write it up, with takt time, a time chart and key points:
Standard work sheet