Standard Operations
Standard Work and Standard Operations
Standardised work is one of the most powerful but least used lean tools. By documenting the current best practice, standardised work forms the baseline for kaizen or continuous improvement. As the standard is improved, the new standard becomes the baseline for further improvements and so on. Improving standardised work is a never-ending process.
In Lean Manufacturing or Service, standardised work is a means of establishing precise procedures to make products or perform services in the safest, easiest and most effective way based on current technologies and available resources. This is a good forum to get team members working effectively together, united behind a clearly defined purpose, with demarcated goals and team roles. Our team building workshop enables team members to take part in a number of facilitated discussions and activities to delve into the topics and challenges most relevant to your team.
Andon Systems
Often physically implemented as a box or a pull line, Andon is foremost a way of alerting the manager to a problem. The nature of the alerts may vary: Delay, machine fault, non-conforming items, the team leader can then take appropriate decisions to solve incidents without losing time.
In Japanese, Andon is a word originally meaning paper lantern; Japanese manufacturers began to use it in quality control and the system was installed mainly to assist companies trigger incident alerts. Initially these signals were installed to signal a team leader when an operation was is in difficulty and that intervention was required (thanks to notifications or visual signals). This is called operator Andon and is triggered by an operator to provide a first level alert.
Work Flow and Process Mapping
Process mapping can help with many business goals from improving process to training and workflow interpretation, but also regulatory compliance, internal auditing and clarifying roles in the business.
Business process mapping is an essential part of running an efficient business or process. Without a visual representation around how predictable processes run in the company, employees are left to guess and make mistakes as to what the best practices are. If a business process is not clearly defined through process mapping each department and individual is left to create their own sequence and assignment. This leads to chaos, confusion, and blame when the task owners are not clearly assigned.
Value Stream Mapping
A Value Stream Map is a ‘data rich’ process map that shows process steps, data about the performance of each process step and information flows within the process. They are drawn to represent the current state of the process and then again to represent the future state of the process after it is redesigned to remove waste.
A value stream map is often used in lean six sigma applications. It’s not as easy to analyze at a glance. Therefore, this is more of a benefit to those looking for a more in-depth view of a process. It is not recommended for giving people an easy-to-read summary of the processes.