More than a few CEOs have expressed frustration with their team’s inability to spot waste in their organizations. In fact, even CEOs often don’t see the extent of the waste.
My sensei referred to this skill as the critical eye, and it has to be developed. With lean manufacturing, the critical eye is developed through full implementation of standardized work. Standardized work is the methodology of established consistencies within work processes. Full implementation of standardized work requires that a person goes through all the steps of creating, maintaining, and improving standardized work. It takes time, patience, tenacity, humility, reflection, and many other attributes. As Shigeo Shingo, one of the creators of lean said, “Lean is a way of thinking- not a list of things to do.”
It’s important to consider standardized work beyond the technical tool in the house of lean, or TPS house.
Taiichi Ohno said, “Where there is no Standard there can be no Kaizen” and “My first move as the manager of the machine shop was to introduce standardized work.” Lean manufacturing is often referred to as continuous improvement. To have improvement (kaizen), there must first be standardization.
Standardized Work documents the most efficient work method by considering quality, safety, quantity, and cost. There are three elements of standardized work:
Work sequence
Takt time
Standardization in process stock
Work Sequence
Standardizing the work sequence tests the resolve of leadership. Team members typically do not use the same work sequence in a traditional operation. This is discovered quickly when you time an operation. The process of effectively timing an operation usually requires 10, and includes observing the sequences team members, verifying the sequence with the team members, and asking them to use the same sequence each time. The person conducting the analysis will find it as difficult to gather cycle times as the operator finds it to follow the same sequence ten times, even though we are timing the sequence that they use for their work every day.
The detailed analysis required for standardized work is difficult for people who are newly responsible for its creation. When I was learning lean, I started by using the smallest element of time possible, as small as ½ second. Later, I used the more common rule of 3 to 10 seconds per element. Subjects often complained this amount of time was too little to be meaningful, but this is because they didn’t understand the requirements and meaning of standardized work yet.
After standardized work is documented, the team must follow the standardized sequence every time for the sake of quality, cycle time consistency, and problem identification. Unfortunately, following the defined work sequence consistently requires strong leadership that many companies lack. Leadership is responsible for educating, motivating, and holding the team accountable. So many lean transformations with billions of dollars of potential savings fail because lazy leaders take the easy path, allowing team members to choose not to follow the correct process.
Takt time
Takt time sets the pace of production to the pace of sales and is the basis for allocating work to team members.
It’s critical to think deeply about the meaning of pace. Sales varies day to day, week to week, but there are methods in lean manufacturing to level production to run to a consistent pace. Discussions about takt time have been energetic at almost every operation I have worked with, and the only people who have argued against it say it can’t be done because it requires production leveling that is impossible.
It's true that if leveling is impossible, there can be no takt time. Takt time is one of the 3 elements of standardized work, so there can be no standard without it. Without a standard, there can be no improvement. And because takt time is the basis for allocation work among team members, without it, what would the basis be for balancing the work? Of course, there are many other reasons that takt time is important in creating a lean operation. Companies have been known to choose “multiple choice lean” with less than significant results. As Taiichi Ohno said, “The key to the Toyota Way and what makes Toyota stand out is not any of the individual elements… what is important is having all the elements together as a system.”
In-Process stock
The third element of standardized work is standard in-process stock. Exceeding the stock level hides opportunity (like operator wait time), but also causes what is defined as the worst of the 7 (or 8) wastes: overproduction. When evaluating a company’s operations we look for inventory stagnation, but how often do we find it in the form of excess in process stock due to lack of strong leadership? Controlling in-process stock is necessary for controlling flow and identifying abnormalities in the process. It also prevents the waste of overproduction.
Whether you’re just staring the lean journey or are well into it, all levels of management are responsible for having confidence in following the principles of lean manufacturing. All levels of management must commit to having the will power to provide the necessary leadership, even when leadership doesn’t understand the underlying philosophies and principles. Lack of faith and consistency in the system by top management is a direct cause of failure. To be successful, all aspects and attributes of lean must be followed. So how do you develop a critical eye? By following the system, which leads to understanding and critical eye development.
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