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Posted by Sadia Waseem
Standard work is a critical aspect of any manufacturing process, and is essential for achieving consistent and efficient production. By establishing a consistent and well-defined method for completing a task, standard work can help eliminate confusion and errors, which can lead to significant time and cost savings. Additionally, by identifying and eliminating unnecessary steps in the process, standard work can improve productivity and reduce wasted resources.
However, standard work is often misunderstood and underutilized in the manufacturing industry. Engineers often mistake just “writing down steps” for standard work, whereas standard work needs to include workstation layout, process flow, takt time, work sequence and standardized tools. It needs to be reviewed, updated, and communicated regularly to ensure it remains relevant and effective.
This article will cover best practices for sustaining standardized work and tackling any challenges that come with its implementation.
Standardized work is a systematic approach to defining the best, most efficient way to complete a task. In manufacturing, it involves creating clear procedures for how, when, and where work should be done. The aim is to reduce variability in a process so that every operator follows the same instructions and it is easier to maintain consistent product quality.
Standardized work is not just a format for documentation or work, instead, it is a basic of the Toyota Production System (TPS) philosophy that is connected with Kaizen. Kaizen means continuous improvement and standardized work is inextricably linked with it. Standardized work provides the baseline for kaizen to occur. It establishes a clear, documented process, which becomes the benchmark for improvement. Without a standardized process, it’s difficult to measure improvement
Before we move towards the framework required for the implementation of standardized work, let’s look through the benefits you get after the implementation of standardized work.
Once you decide to standardize your work, there are few conditions that you need to fulfill to achieve and sustain it:
After fulfilling the necessary conditions for standardized work, you need 3 key components that must be present to ensure successful implementation of standardized work. These 3 components are:
Now, that you are well aware of the prerequisites of standardized work, it’s time to move towards the implementation stage. Following is the step-by-step guide to implementing standardized work in your current process:
Standardized work transform your manufacturing process by increasing efficiency, improving safety, and reducing cost. It is possible that you face some resistance while implementing standardized work, but the long-term benefits far outweigh the challenges. The steps and conditions to implement standardized may seem lengthy, but you can use AI-powered software like Kaizen Copilot and Assembly Copilot to automate and streamline many factors involved in standardization.
Brandin and his team help our customers with setting up the Pathfinder platform and getting up-to-speed on all the features and functionalities, in addition to assisting them with standardizing their processes where needed.
Brandin is a seasoned manufacturing leader, who has spent more than a decade designing and setting up assembly lines in both the US and China, optimizing them, and working with human operators to maximize productivity and quality.
Jesse works closely with our marquis customers to understand their needs, and figures out the best solution that immediately adds dollars to their bottom line.
Jesse has two decades of enterprise sales experience. He has held sales leadership roles at pioneering technology startups.
Andrey takes inventions and converts them into innovations. He leads our product engineering team to turn our scientific prototypes into robust customer-facing products.
Andrey co-founded and successfully exited a startup to immigrate to the US. He spent his next eight years building the core data science infrastructure for Amazon’s supply chain planning team, and the CV/ML infrastructure for Microsoft’s HoloLens organization.
Zeeshan focuses on delighting our customers by understanding their needs and defining product and strategy to meet and exceed these needs. He works closely with our sales leadership to grow our customer base.
Zeeshan was a scientific leader at Microsoft’s HoloLens division, where he invented AI technologies to assist frontline workers across industries. Earlier, he shipped IoT platforms and visual defect detection software for manufacturers at Siemens and MVTec GmbH.
Huy takes our product roadmap and figures out what’s achievable with today’s AI advances, and what we need to invent to solve our customers’ pain points.
Huy led teams of scientists and engineers at NEC and invented technologies for driver assistance systems that are part of 500,000+ Honda cars. He is an inventor on more than 20 US patents, and his research papers are cited by every lab from MIT, Stanford, and CMU to Apple, Google, and Baidu.
