Standard Work for Lean Manufacturing with Bryan McWhorter 

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Standard work is an important part of any lean manufacturing operation system. It does not matter what type of business you have, without standard work...you won’t sustain continuous improvement. Bryan McWhorter explains how standard work fits in the lean tool kit.
Standard work instructions or standard operating procedures (as it is sometimes called) become the glue that holds your continuous improvement activities together. After establishing the main company goal (Hoshin Kanri) which is the “why” of doing business…you must list the “what”. What do your people do?
There should be an up to date document for each positions that lists all the activities the employee will engage in during the course of a normal shift. Once this is done, you can abandon the traditional mode of training by tribal knowledge. A new employee would be handed the document listing all work activities. This goes a long way in improving their comfort level and provided a much better training experience.
The final step in creating standard work is the “how.” For each identified activity…work instructions need to be created. A new employee would now have the list of activities and detailed instructions on how to perform each of them in the safest, most efficient manner possible.
We are surrounded by standard work examples we take for granted, such as everything to do with driving a car.
In the U.S., all roads use the same traffic signals and laws. Drivers follow the same rules of the road. We even have the dashboards and interior of our cars standardized. Our instrument panels may have subtle differences but for the most part…they are the same. If they weren’t, it could make driving multiple vehicles very difficult as you spent time learning the configuration of each one.
Standard work makes life easier. Everyone is performing tasks the same way…which means if someone has an idea to improve one, the improvement can be made and the documentation up dated. Now everyone is using the new and improved method.
Kaizen now used with standard work creates a true continuous improvement environment. Employee’s moral goes up and they continually improve how and what they do at work. This will invigorate the entire workforce and remove variation and waste.
The end result will be a much happier experience for the customer.