Standardized work involves documenting and following a particular way or method of doing a task or series of tasks in a process each and every time. This is important because customers are looking for consistency in our products and services.
If your processes are constantly changing because of variation in how work is done, it becomes difficult to monitor and maintain. Standardized work provides a stable framework to ensure all work is done in the same and best possible manner.
Standardized work is a dynamic process that incorporates best methods and facilitates continuous improvement. It is a set of work procedures that combine people, materials, and technology to maintain quality, efficiency, and predictability. It establishes the best methods and sequence steps to optimize performance and minimize waste. The most efficient method is then documented and people are trained to follow the established standard. Thus a process is completed the same way every time no matter who completes the task.
Benefits of standardized work include:
- Creates repeatable processes that are consistently executed
- Identifies the most efficient method for a process
- Provides effective training and cross-training for employees
- Improves process quality
- Lowers cost of rework
- Identifies waste in a process
- Provides best practice process documentation
- Helps workers meet customer demand
Standardized work identifies those activities that are required to add value to your customers. In the analysis of the service activities, steps can be reduced, eliminated, or combined to ensure that the cycle time for the process is as efficient as possible.
When first looking at a process in need of improvement, the first questions to ask are, “Does standardized work and procedures exist for this process? Are they being followed? Are they adequate?” Often, this is a good place to start if you answer no to one of these questions!