Also called standardized work, standard operating procedure, SOP
What is standard work?
The current best known way to do a job, written down by the people who do it, and followed until somebody finds a better way.
What else it is called
- Other names
- standardized work, standard operating procedure, SOP
- In French
- travail standardisé
Related entries
Understanding standard work
A short document, usually one page with pictures, recording how a job is done right now: the order of the steps, how long each takes, and how much material sits at the station. It is deliberately not a permanent instruction. It is a record of the best way anybody currently knows, held in place only until somebody demonstrates better.
Its real function is as a baseline. If three people do a job three ways, a change cannot be evaluated, because the comparison has no fixed starting point. Standardizing first is what makes improvement measurable rather than anecdotal.
The common failure is writing them in an office. A standard written by an engineer who has not run the machine describes an idealized job, gets quietly ignored, and then sits in a binder for an auditor.
In practice
Ask three operators on three shifts to describe the same job. Where their answers differ is where the variation in your quality and your cycle times is coming from.
Frequently asked
Does standard work stop people improving?
It does the opposite when it is used properly. Without a standard there is nothing to improve against and no way to hold a gain. The failure comes from treating the document as permanent rather than as the current best known method.