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May 31, 2022 | Time to read: 4 min
Aldo Corona is a Customer Success Manager at Drishti.
Continuous improvement is a neverending process of iterative progress. In lean manufacturing, continuous improvement is worked into the philosophy of all systems.
Standardized work is the bedrock of lean manufacturing as it sets the standard for production processes, therefore continuous improvement in an organization is highly affected by the quality of the standardized work implementation. Mature companies should seek to ensure that their standardized work is a priority.
Once established, it is the baseline for improvement. Standardized work is the means of creating a process by which continuous improvement can happen on the line. There is always some variability in a process no matter how mature an organization may be. Even with standardized work processes universally established and measured, the way to see benefits is to continually audit, review and refine processes.
"Today’s standardization…is the necessary foundation on which tomorrow’s improvements will be based. If you think “standardization” as the best you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow – you get somewhere. But if you think of standards as confining, then progress stops." - Henry Ford (source)
If an organization undergoes the process of implementing a system of standardized work properly, it has taken a huge leap forward in continuous improvement. By implementing standardized work, it has removed massive amounts of variability at the line level and created a foundation for the rest of its processes, as well as a baseline from which to improve. Standardized work then feeds into the other systems, including preventive maintenance, supply chain management, design and development and eventually even sales processes. It is the foundation of proper continuous improvement (kaizen) events.
Takt time and out-of-sequence
If cycle times are consistently not to takt time, it’s an indicator that something is amiss on the line. A deviant cycle can indicate any number of issues: bottlenecks, a worker rushing, a mistake being made, stress on the line, ergonomic issues, and so on. To identify the problem, the engineer or supervisor needs to get a handle on the current condition. Technology like Drishti can automatically alert manufacturers — either through the worker in real time, or to the supervisor or manager via regular reports — that cycle times are deviating from the desired norm and therefore need attention. Drishti also records and stores videos that clearly illuminate any standardized work deviations.
Similarly, steps performed out of sequence, or steps with abnormally long or short durations, can be instantly flagged and reviewed, or summarized through a report. Ideally, the manufacturer would use Drishti to narrow down the potential cause of any long or short cycles, then go to the line and verify.
Did that improvement work?
Once a manufacturer studies the data and insights into operations that Drishti provides, he or she can implement changes on the line. Drishti then performs as a continuous real-time auditor of the improvement in question. Did the change in operations actually result in the desired improvement? Is it being sustained over time and across shifts? By studying Drishti data, the manufacturer can quickly tell whether deviant cycles and steps have been reduced or eliminated and if there are other improvements that could be implemented to further tighten the performance of the line.
Performing continuous improvement (kaizen) events
To make more holistic improvements across the line, many manufacturers hold periodic continuous improvement events, often referred to as kaizens in the TPS lexicon. Without technology like Drishti on the line, an event of this nature relies on videos and snapshots of data from the period leading up to the event (again, this data is manually gathered, so tends to be biassed, incomplete and time-consuming to gather).
The variability on the line that can be identified in a condensed time period is limited, and the kaizen event itself takes at least a week, with several weeks of data gathering and analysis before and after. Famously, production ratios consistently drop after each process improvement as the team learns new standardized work instructions.
“Without standardized work, there is no kaizen.” - Taiichi Ohno (source)
With Drishti, kaizens are far less disruptive to the organization. Drishti automatically gathers data before and after the event, removing bias and providing far more data points than manually gathering would ever allow. Meanwhile, the kaizen team can focus on the high-value portion of the event: discovering opportunities and implementing improvements. Once the solution is implemented and standardized work is updated, Drishti continues to provide meaningful measurements that will verify whether or not the solution worked. Drishti dovetails perfectly with standardized work and kaizen events to make continuous improvement seamless for an organization.
Simply put, when paired with standardized work, Drishti is a powerful tool that provides huge volumes of data and valuable insights that enhance the thinking of everyone in the manufacturing operation.
For more information on standardized work, how to implement it and how to upgrade it read our eBook.
