In many Toyota operations there’s a visual system set up for auditing the stan-
dard work. Each work group may have a visual board with cards called a kamishibai
board (story book). At NUMMI, group leaders check one process each day for
compliance to standardized work, watching work cycles. This brings them to each
job at least once per month. The cards contain questions they complete on the per-
formance of standardized work and the accuracy of the standardized work docu-
ment. Discrepancies are noted and countermeasures described on the card. There
is a card slot for every process in a team. The cards are moved to a corresponding
adjacent vacant slot once the check has been performed. When a problem is noted,
the card is turned with the dark side facing out, indicating that something needs
correction. Assistant managers check the boards each day to verify that the checks
are being made properly. They randomly select a card from the board, obtain the
standardized work and conduct a check of a process with the group leader. There
are approximately 90 boards throughout the shop.
Now compare this to many companies that “have” standard work. A standard
work sheet is filled out and posted, perhaps by an industrial engineer. If they
get really fancy, it may have photos of the work steps. It is posted so the opera-
tor can see it. No one does anything with it, but it looks good to visitors, who
can say, “They look lean.”
Standardized Work as a Baseline for Continuous Improvement
After the initial standardization of tasks the real fun begins. We should now ask,
“Where is the next level of opportunity?” This is where the answer becomes
more complex. We must reconsider our primary objective—to get more value-
added activity with less cost, or in other words, to make more parts with fewer
resources. Before running off and making improvements, however, we should
first understand what will be done with the gain. It is important to always make
improvement based on need, rather than because improvement is possible.
Improvement will always be possible!
If you continue to reduce setup time, for example, what will you do with
the additional time? Is it important to drive down batch sizes, to increase flex-
ibility, or do you need the volume? Too often we see companies “do setup
reduction” and reduce the time significantly, but there is no plan for using the
freed up time, and the setup times slowly creep back to the original level. This
same phenomenon applies to other “improvements.” When improvements are
made, you must change the process so that sustaining the improvements is
necessary for continued success. The improved level must become the new
standard, and the excess removed. If there is no need to sustain, any gains will
not be maintained.
Chapter 6. Establish Standardized Processes and Procedures 135