Standardised work in the pursuit of perfection

Standardised work in the pursuit of perfection

Standardised work is not going to happen if it it’s pushed down on people. The improvements comes from the people who understand the work. But it does need to be the accepted way. A way that can be changed for the sake of betterment of the whole business in the pursuit of perfection. 

Change can’t be forced on people. Human nature will always retaliate. But, there is a better way. This way involves letting your people be the catalyst of change. Building continuous improvement into your organisational culture. But not just improving for the sake of it. Allowing your people to see and be part of the big picture without reducing everything to individual task management. Think in terms of collaborating with people not command and controlling individuals. 

Building the ideal business starts with asking the question why do you want a Lean business? If you have a Lean mind set the answer might be to solve customer our customer’s problems or to create value for our customers. Others might answer that they want Lean to reduce costs. Lean helps with both of these but the focus needs to be on improving the right processes to enable you create customer value. The improvement becomes the standardised way of work. Does the work have to be done this way? Yes. Does it have to be done this way for ever? No. The standardised way is always open for improvement and modification as the Lean Ideology is that your processes can always do better. 

But better at what? Well better and creating the ideal, that is one’s idea of what is perfect. This is a pursuit because the ideal changes over time and in different contexts. 

It starts by deciding what it is that you are aiming for, next think about what principles you will needs to peruse this ideal. Then look to the Lean tools and techniques to guide your people.