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.
Standard
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.
A Good Standard Needs No Explanation
Standards are one of the backbones of lean manufacturing. For a standard to be good and used consistently, it should be self-explanatory. Additionally, you should understand it well enough to easily recognize deviations from the standard. I would like to give you an example of how my thought process works when exploring a standard.
Toyota Standard Work – Part 3: Standard Work Layout
This post is the third in this series on how Toyota plans standard work. The first one was the production capacity sheet to define what capacity you have available. The second one was a standard work combination table to define when the operator is doing what. Finally, the third of the “famous three slips”, presented in this post, is a standard work layout sheet to help the layout and arrangement of the machines.
Toyota Standard Work – Part 2: Standard Work Combination Table
Toyota has a nifty way to plan the work of an operator using their standard work charts. In my last post I explained the production capacity sheet to define what capacity you have available. In this post we will talk about the second of the “famous three slips”, the standard work combination table to define when the operator is doing what. A subsequent post will show a standard work layout sheet.
Toyota Standard Work – Part 1: Production Capacity
Toyota is excellent with their standard work. They use a series of worksheets to simplify the creation of these standards. These are sometimes also know as the “famous 3 slips”. The first one is a production capacity sheet to define what capacity you have available. The second one is a standard work combination table to define when the operator is doing what. The third one is a standard work layout sheet to help with the layout and arrangement of the machines. While there are many different ways of doing this, I like the Toyota approach. Since this is a larger topic, I’ve broken it into multiple blog posts. Lets start with the Production Capacity sheet.