Getting to Standardised Work: How can TWI Job Instruction help?
There is much talk about the need for standardised work. But not enough is being done to make it happen: processes & results remain variable and Lean & Six Sigma under-deliver. How do we create stable, predictable processes that boost performance and provide a solid foundation for operations excellence?
Most lean initiatives involve a lot of talk about the need for standardised work. Lean leaders realise that without ‘standardisation in place’, improvements won’t stick. Without standardisation, the new method you have just developed with your Kaizen team is just one of many, many ways of building your product or delivering your service. Without standardisation your process will deliver big variation in quality, output and time.
Therefore, standardisation is not just one of the things we ‘do’ as we strive for operations excellence. Rather, it should be the heart of our our operations excellence practice, the driver of improvement - not just the end result.
“Squeezing process variation is a key management responsibility.”
Despite the critical importance of standardisation and talk about standardised work, the degree of process and output variability prevalent in many companies indicates there is significant scope for doing more.
Squeezing process variation through standardised work is a key management responsibility. According to Mr. Kato, Toyota’s long-serving training manager who played a leading role in establishing Toyota-style lean manufacturing methods at NUUMI (a joint venture of Toyota and General Motors), ‘basic stability’ plays a key role in the continuous improvement journey - a stepping stone on the way to advanced manufacturing techniques. It is - or should be - the first step on the way to standardised work. So how do we create basic stability?
Mr. Kato suggests that TWI Job Instruction (TWI JI) is a great starting point. Ultimately, most of the things that go wrong in operations can be traced back to knowledge and skill - someone, somewhere doesn’t know the best method of doing the job or can’t do it correctly and consistently. And this, in turn, can be traced back to faulty - incomplete or insufficient - skills training.
TWI Job Instruction corrects the common pit-falls of on-the-job training by providing a reliable, repeatable training method. TWI JI connects the written work standard with the actual practice on the shop floor and teaches the technique of delivering effective on-the-job training that ensures people reliably perform a task exactly the way it should be done to get consistently good results.
“Most things that go wrong in operations can be traced back to knowledge and skill... that is - faulty job instruction.”
TWI Job Instruction develops hands-on skills in identifying the ‘one best way’ our SMEs (subject matter experts) know how to perform the work and passing on this method through simple, reliable and effective on-the-job instruction to new and experienced operators.
Through TWI JI supervisors and team leaders also learn how to follow up effectively with the workers to ensure the standard method ‘sticks’ and is applied consistently by everyone until a new, better method has been developed by the team.
TWI Job Instruction is a key ingredient for successful operations excellence or lean program. If people play a significant role in your processes, you will probably need to invest a lot of effort and resources on standardising the methods of how work is done, if you want your process improvement work to progress at speed and deliver world-class results.