The hidden power of Standard Work

Within the manufacturing industry, the concept of standard work has existed since the assembly line was invented. The concept revolutionized operations and transformed organizations. Some service industries such as information & technology have adapted standard work with great success such as IBM. Corporations like McDonald's have expanded globally within food service. However, many organizations struggle with this concept or face resistance in implementing.

For those unfamiliar with the term, standard work refers to the most efficient and uniform flow of a process which delivers the greatest value in a repeatable way. We see it all around us in our daily lives: from cooking instructions on the back of a frozen meal, to our GPS route to work in the morning, it defines how achieve a result effectively and consistently, again and again. It is the foundation of continuous improvement and the basis for operational excellence.

The obvious benefit is saving time and money, as well as efficiency, safety or compliance, and delivering consistent high quality service. Additionally, by standardizing work and building a strong foundation, your organization is better able to pursue continuous improvement and operational excellence. Your organization is better able to train new and existing employees for success, and retain those high performing employees. The customer wins, the employee wins, the organization wins. Everyone wins!

I recently found a great article about standard work from the site Operations Insider, which focuses on operations excellence and has a number of articles on the subject. The article has by far the best definition of what is standard work is, as well as the 5 step process in implementing standard work. In short, the process is: Define, Observe & Document, Analyze, Train, Review. You can find the article here at: https://operationsinsider.com/the-language-of-lean/standard-work

Often when organizations face operational challenges, the root cause can be traced to an issue in the standard work where by the organization has overlooked either step 2, or step 5 of the process.

Step 2: "Observe and document the current process: Observe the current process, and document each step, including the time taken for each step and any variation in the process." This is a critical step in the process, as you cannot move forward without solid data. Time and variance are vital to both observe and document. Often SOP's are created without these 2 components, or are not updated when a change in either of these components occur. Overlooking this emphasizes workers to retain greater amounts of information to complete the tasks, due to the variance(s), as well as relying on hybrid knowledge instead of documentation. As a result, the organization losses the power to effectively train new and existing workers, decreases productivity and engagement, and lacks consistency of value in service.

Step 5: "Continuously improve: Regularly review the standard work and identify opportunities for improvement." In essence, repeat steps 1-4 periodically or as change demands. If procedural documents become outdated, update them. Overlooking this, the work becomes defined by hybrid knowledge and an organization loses its power to deliver consistent results regardless of who is performing the task. When change or variance occurs, it presents an opportunity to review the current standard and examine if and update is warranted. If so, the 5 step process should be followed.

The article also lists 10 tips which I personally use with organizations work with, especially 3-5:

#3. "Focus on standardizing the process, not the workers." When you focus on the process and not the person, you minimize cultural and other bias, and promote diversity and inclusion.

#4. "Use visual aids, such as flow charts, to help workers understand the standard work." Not only this, job aids reduce the amount, while improving the quality of retention of information. This allows to better multitask.

#5. "Regularly review and update the standard work to reflect changes in the process, the workers, or the equipment." Repeating step 5 of the initial process.

The goal here is to reduce or minimize the variations in a standard be either eliminating or incorporating them into the standard work.

By harnessing the power of standard work, any organization, in any industry can benefit from the rewards it brings, and the foundation it forms for continuous improvement and operations excellence.

For a shorter read on standard work and its benefits you can also check out this LinkedIn article:https://www.linkedin.com/advice/3/what-benefits-using-standard-work-improve-quality-u028c

Or reach out to me and we can discuss how to better implement standard work in your organization.