Explores five purposes of standard work.

1. 5
purposes
of
Standard Work

2. Created by Tom Curtis 2011
Blog: www.onimproving.blogspot.com
Presentations: on www.slideshare.net/onimproving
Email: ideamerchants@gmail.com
Twitter: @onimproving

3. Introduction
Standard work is easier to talk about than to do
right. This does not mean it is not important.
This slide set addresses five reasons that
standard work is important. Doing standard
work without a clear understanding of why we
are doing creates waste and frustration.
Recognizing these reasons can help us ensure
that our efforts are pointed in the right direction.

4. 5 purposes of Standard Work
• Clarifies the process
• Documents the current best way
• Ensures operating consistency
• Expedites employee training
• Provides the baseline for improvement

5. Clarifies the process
Standard work can help us clarify what our process
is and should be. You may be saying "we know
what our process is". Let's think about if I were to
ask all of the employees involved, would they define
the process the same way, step for step and action
for action? We do know what our process is or how
we think it should be, the problem is this is usually at
a strategic level rather that a tactical level. For
standard work to be used at the worker level we
need to develop with them clarity of process.

6. Documents best way
Standard work documents the current best known
way to do our process. This requires consensus
from those doing the work if it is to be sustainable.
This may require discussion and upfront work. It is
a must. Why? Without agreement we do not have
"the" best known way. We have "a" best known
way. There is an important difference. With "a"
rather than "the" we do not have a standard, we
have a suggestion. We must have a standard, there
is no other option, so we need to find “the” best way.

7. Ensures consistency
Standard work helps us ensure operational
consistency. How? We have one way to do our
process. We have a standard that we can follow
and audit to. We can use the document as we
perform the process and we can audit ourselves and
others to identify gaps and opportunities to improve
the standard. As described in the prior essays,
clarity and consensus prepare us to ensure
consistent use and accuracy to standard work.

8. Expedites Training
With a clear current consensus and consistency in
our standard work, we have paid the price for a
document that can greatly aid our training of both
current and new employees. With good living
standard work we have the training content we need
well defined. There are no tricks of the trade or
hidden secrets for success, there is simply a
process to learn, study, practice, and follow. This
facilitates self study and practice, frequent review,
and hands on practice. If everyone is in sync it
allows us to work together to maintain and improve.

9. Provides the Baseline
If we do not know our starting point how can we
measure improvement? If we do not have standard
work from which to begin, we are on shifting sand.
There may be multiple ways a process is being
done. There may be hidden steps. A normal state
may not exist. If we can document and understand
the current state, we can ensure we that we know
what we trying to improve. This helps us focus on
root cause rather than symptoms. It is tempting to
dive into improvement without stabilization, if we do,
we do so without control and with risk.