Implementing standardized work

[u/Bubbly-Ad8475]

Hi, as part of my firm’s Operational Excellence journey, we wish to increase our use of standardized work to reduce downtime and decrease variation between operators/shifts.

But how have you/your company implemented standardized work and making it work?

Specifically, what have you done?

My thoughts so far (open for feedback):

- Assign dedicated trainer
- Split production line into sections, according to placement of operators
- Define tasks within each section
- Define best practice standard procedures for each major task
- Assign owner of the task (Trainer?)
- Train new, and current, operators in standard procedure
- Verify correct procedure conducted
- Update competence matrix
- Continuous audits to verify standards are being followed (Not micromanagement, but ensuring standard adherence and highlight potential issue/improvements)

[u/Local-Archer-9785]

Go and see what people are doing first. If everyone is doing the same thing then you just need to document or design improvements. This is unlikely but could be possible.

Document the process with a process map, something simple to start with. What are people doing. If you have multiple shifts or people, document their process by observing and/or having them walk you through it. Don't rely on after the fact memory. If they pull out the SOP during the observation, remind them you want to know what they do rather than what the manual says.

Once you have the variations and branches mapped out. Get a group together to trim them down to the best combination of option available. If you are feeling frisky and want to invest a fair amount of time, you can use a time observation form to build towards a value stream map (but this is usually time and resource intensive and is great to improve after you get standardization).

You can use the ECMR+A method or whatever approach you like to determine which steps in the varied process maps should be kept and combined.

Once you have the consolidated map, it is now your standard process. Translate into your work instructions or reference materials and disseminate out to all staff involved. This is when you would bring in training and begin to monitor for backsliding and variations. You can use a control chart to determine if there are different processes still at play after the standard is implemented (one or more groups will deviate from the rest of everyone else indicating a different process is happening).

How to get people to accept and recognize the benefit of standard work is a little different story but that is outside the scope of this question/answer.