Is there risk in deploying lean standard work?
Lean Nation, If you have followed previous blogs, I spend a lot of time talking about standard work. In my nearly 30 years of being active with lean management, I have learned one thing. If you have worked with me in the past, you will know what I am about to say. “ If you do not leave your improvement effort with standard work and supporting visual management, you are wasting your time. You will not sustain the improvements. Your culture will pull you back to status quo every time. It might be a week, or it might be six months, but the gains will evaporate” I have written before why standards are critical. As a brief refresher, a standard is a basis for comparison. It allows us to compare one thing against another. Common standards used almost daily are time, weight, volume, and distance. With these standards we know which alternative travels a shorter distance or takes less time. In the lean world a standard is our known best way to do something. It is like ...