Standardised Work
Standardised work is bad. If you standardise everything, the work becomes boring, you can't deal with the special cases and the cost of documenting the standards is too high.
Well, yes and no.
There is no point in having standards yellowing away in a dusty folder, locked in a rusty cabinet. There is no point in sticking only to the standards like the script in the call centre that won't let you ask the simplest question until all the verification steps have been gone through. There is no point in making all the staff bored by giving them all the same work to do every day.
But that isn't really what standardised work is for.
At its best, standardised work is a way of capturing the best yet known way of working. No more, no less. I must emphasise the phrase "best yet". Just because it is standard does not mean there is not room for improvement. It is simply the best so far.
The standardisation should encompass variety. In fact some work should not be standardised. A good example is dealing with failure demand. Do not automate failure demand. But the high volume, fast moving value demand probably should be standardised.
Once the fast moving, high volume work is standardised, staff will have more time to work on either other work or perhaps further improvements, thus making work more interesting not less.
So be careful what you standardise and use it to lock in learning and not to control staff.
Well, yes and no.
There is no point in having standards yellowing away in a dusty folder, locked in a rusty cabinet. There is no point in sticking only to the standards like the script in the call centre that won't let you ask the simplest question until all the verification steps have been gone through. There is no point in making all the staff bored by giving them all the same work to do every day.
But that isn't really what standardised work is for.
At its best, standardised work is a way of capturing the best yet known way of working. No more, no less. I must emphasise the phrase "best yet". Just because it is standard does not mean there is not room for improvement. It is simply the best so far.
The standardisation should encompass variety. In fact some work should not be standardised. A good example is dealing with failure demand. Do not automate failure demand. But the high volume, fast moving value demand probably should be standardised.
Once the fast moving, high volume work is standardised, staff will have more time to work on either other work or perhaps further improvements, thus making work more interesting not less.
So be careful what you standardise and use it to lock in learning and not to control staff.
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