4 Ways to Better Implement Standard Work

Lately, I've gotten a lot of questions about standard work. Leaders want to know what tools I use to develop and implement standard work on the manufacturing floor as well as in office environments. 

I have used a lot of methods for standard work: videos, written documents, and visual boards to name a few. My personal favorite involves the use of visuals aids and color coding to explain a process. My goal is to completely train a person on a new process without using any words! Think of a stop light.

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There's no one there giving verbal directions, but each and every person knows exactly what to do. Hard to get there in every process, but that's always my goal. 

Before I answer the question of what I use, I always ask "why"... I want to know what prompted the question. Usually, it's because the leader is having issues with successfully implementing and sustaining standard work. They look for best practices in hopes of finding a method with a higher success rate. Honestly, a lot of methods work depending upon your work environment; however, I think four key things are important to make the standard work stick.

1. Never write standard work alone. The goal is to create clean, accurate, and concise standard work. That takes a lot of work. If done incorrectly, you'll have a poorly defined process that no one understands. Let's be honest, writing standard work isn't the most glamorous process. It takes a lot of careful observation. To do it right, you really should be observing every single person that touches the process. I usually have standard work events where we break out into teams. We start with a plan that outlines how we are going to capture and document the standard work. We also identify who's going to do what. At the end of our event, we complete quality checks to ensure standard work accuracy. In times where I can't schedule an entire event, I use the same process but we complete our tasks over the course of a month or so. This ensures that the standard work is recorded and documented correctly. We don't mark it as complete until the standard work has been completely validated. 
2. Train the trainer. I'm a huge fan of including everyone in process improvement but I have to put limits on who is able to train our team on standard work. Just because a person is good at a process doesn't mean he or she knows how to successfully train someone else. You have to make sure they're patient, capable of thoroughly explaining, and can adjust their training methods based on whom they're training. There should also be a training process that teaches trainers to understand the dos and don'ts of training. Also, allow trainees to give feedback so that trainers can continuously improve. 
3. Measure the performance of each person. The goal here is to capture and improve the skill level of each person. Everyone learns at a different rate. Understanding this fact is key especially if you have a manual process. It is important to track and monitor what skills need improvement on a case-by-case basis. Many Lean leaders struggle with the idea of creating individual metrics, for good reason. We would never set out to develop a program that would make someone feel like a "failure". I do however believe in tracking data on people to better understand how I can help them improve. It also helps me identify what processes to make easier and error proof. I don't post performance by the person anywhere, but I do track it internally. 
4. Improve. No, seriously. I see a lot of people who treat standard work as a bible. You must continuously improve standard work. Someone could have found a better, faster, or cheaper way to operate! Be sure to develop a change process. If anyone needs to deviate or wants to recommend a new process, ensure that everyone follows the correct procedures to do so. If you're too strict you'll never improve but if it's too flexible, you'll never reduce variation. Also, set a standard work audit schedule. Choose a time and date for you and your team to go through the process, observe, and improve. I usually shoot for every three to four months. 
5. **BONUS TIP** Make it easy to find the standard work. This is an issue that I see very often. I've developed a lot of standard work in the last 10 years of my career. Til this day, people still call and ask if I remember where we saved the standard work for process XYZ. Often times it is hidden somewhere on a shared drive that mysteriously eats documents. I now use Kaizen Collab to save all of my documents to each lean initiative. I can easily search and find what I need. Other locations in my organization can also go into the platform to see the standard work that I've written for processes similar to theirs and vice versa. Moreover, I track a lot of the tips mentioned above such as metrics by person and standard work audits in Kaizen Collab. Having one location that's easy to use is very important in implementing standard work and other improvement processes in an organization.

Ready to track, monitor, and sustain your lean initiatives? Setup a demo with Kaizen Collab.

P.S. Need help with tracking standard work action items, performance, and audit schedules? Watch Kaizen Collab's demo to find out how we can help. 

P.S.S. What additional tips would you add to this list? I would love to hear them in the comments.

Happy Problem Solving,

Amery