by Lee Fried, on 26 Jun 2006 09:28 pm
The Journey
Standard or Optional
Popularity: 15%
I attended a Kaizen today and during visioning several memebers of the team questioned the need for standard work. It was in their opinion that standard work leads to less creativity and they “did not come to work to be robots.” It was amazing to me how passionate they were about keeping standards out of their work. A year ago I would have tried to sell the value of standard work to them, but today I simply asked them whether our patients would agree with their logic. Nobody had a good response.
on 06 Jul 2006 at 8:49 am 1.Mark Graban said …
In hospital labs, I’ve heard the comment that “we are already robots” because the lab equipment is so automated. Well trained techs are just loading instruments at this point.
So lean is an opportunity to use their brains and be less robot like. Yes, you have to follow a standard procedure, but use your brainpower for kaizen, for suggestions, for actually implementing process improvements.
That’s how people, even toyota line workers who do the same thing every 45 seconds, are not robots.
Remind them of the toyota phrase that “Standard Work is the Basis for Kaizen.” It’s only with standards that you can have true improvement. Not thinking about every little thing you do (”how should I do that”) frees you up to think about improvements.
Another thing I like to ask people, “Airline pilots are very well trained and have a lot of responsibility. Aren’t you glad THEY have very standardized procedures when your life is in their hands?” You know, we can skip those pre-flight checks and I know a faster way to get to O’Hare… not cool.