In this series I have talked a lot about standards in general, work standards, standardized work. Let me now show you an example of a work standard, an actual instruction on how to do a work. Since standards in industry are usually confidential, I present you my own standard on how to make a cup of ramen noodles. I used a software tool Soft4Lean SWI to help me with the format; more on that later.
Standard
Standards Part 7: How to Write a Work Standard
In my last post I talked about the different steps on how to do standard work. In this post I will go into more detail on how to write the actual work standard that is put up at the workplace. This will include quite a few examples in different styles, before I will go into a bit more detail for one example in my next post.
Standards Part 6: Standardized Work
Standard work, or better called standardized work, is a popular method in lean manufacturing. It is closely related to standards and hence part of this longer series on standards, but with a focus on manufacturing or assembly. The actual creation of the work standard is only one of the last steps, and a lot of time is put into balancing the production and matching the customer takt. I have written a lot about some of these aspects before, but let me give you an overview.
Standards Part 5: How to Use and Improve a Standard
This post of this series on standards looks at how to use the standard correctly, and how to improve a standard. Hint: It is all about the people actually using the standard. This series is again getting longer than I thought, as there is much detail to be discussed. The next post will finally look more at standardized work.
Standards Part 4: How to Write a Standard (Continued)
Standards are one of the cornerstones of modern manufacturing. However, they are not easy to write, and a bad standard can make things even worse than before. In my previous post I started to introduce how to write a standard. This post continues the topic of writing a standard with a few more tips.
Standards Part 3: How to Write a Standard
Standards are the result of problem solving. In this article I will talk more about how to write a standard, but this is the outcome or the last steps of the problem-solving process. From this post onward I will look more at work standards, although the following is applicable to a lesser extent to part standards. Again, a standard is not something done on its own, but is part of a problem-solving process.
Standards Part 2: Why and Where to Do Standards
Standards are crucial to making your manufacturing system work smoothly. But where should you have standards? Sometimes you hear the answer, “Everywhere,” but this is not really helpful and I also think not really correct, either. Hence, let me talk a bit on why and where to have standards. This applies to all kinds of standards, not just the standardized work that is the most widely discussed one when talking about standards in lean.
Standards Part 1: What Are Standards?
Standards. You know they are important for manufacturing. You know Toyota and hence lean uses them extensively. But you may also know that they are not easy. I was thinking about writing a few blog posts on standards for a long time, but… it is a challenging topic. Let me give you my thoughts on standards and how to use them in lean manufacturing. But before going deeper into the use of standards over a few blog posts, I’ll provide a quick introduction on standards.