Toyota). In Toyota’s view, it is acceptable to allow a machine to wait for the
operator, but it is not acceptable to allow the operator to wait for the machine.
Remember, the operator comes first.
Production Capacity Sheet
The Production Capacity Sheet (not shown here) indicates the capacity of machin-
ery in the process. You must consider the cycle time of the equipment, that is, how
long it takes to process each piece, but also factor in planned downtime during
tool changes and changeover times. It is most applicable to machining opera-
tions that involve tooling wear and tool changes, but applies to operations such
as injection molding and stamping, where changeover times must be consid-
ered. It is a useful tool for identifying bottleneck operations.
The document used is very similar to capacity planning processes used
by most manufacturing engineers to specify equipment for purchase. The
primary purpose is to determine if the machinery has capacity for the pro-
duction requirement. Calculations are based on the available run time, the
cycle time per piece, and time lost due to tool changes or other changeover
requirements.
Some Challenges of Developing Standardized Work
Aside from an attempt to develop standardized work based on the myths men-
tioned earlier, other challenges include attempts to standardize an entire “job,”
versus task elements of the job, and attempting to standardize a task that has vari-
ation built in. Much of the work we see in companies today includes a variety
of tasks that are performed by a single individual.
For example, an employee may have a task to build a certain product. In
addition he or she will also retrieve the materials necessary and deliver the
finished goods to the next operation. The task of building the product is fairly
consistent and easy enough to document, but what about the other tasks? They
occur randomly, or once every so many cycles. How would you weave these
two distinctly different tasks together into one Standardized Work Sheet? The
answer is that generally you don’t. The work elements needed to build the prod-
uct constitute the primary task (and the value-adding operation), and it should
be standardized creating the most efficient, repeatable method. Within Toyota,
operators do not typically retrieve their own materials nor transport finished
product because these activities take away from the value-adding activities. The
transportation of materials would be standardized for the person responsible
for them, such as a material handler.
Chapter 6. Establish Standardized Processes and Procedures 131