In a department, several employees have the same position. They work every day to complete tasks. Everyone does their job in their own way, according to their experience. Several products are available for employees to do their jobs and each employee uses the products they prefer as over time they have requested a one and ordered it.
Then the product is transferred to another team which continues the work.
The second team consequently receives different products with different levels of completion because each person from the first team has done the task at a different level of progress. This creates frustrations for the 2nd team, which sometimes must redo the 1st team’s work. The 1st team says it’s not their job to do certain tasks and thinks the 2nd team is just complaining unnecessarily.
There are conflicts. Some employees no longer want to work with one or the other. Frustrations increase and repeat themselves. In addition, the time to complete tasks is not the same depending on who performs them. It becomes difficult to plan the workload because it never takes the same time to complete tasks.
Does this situation sound like what you are going through?
In your departments, how is the work done? Is it done differently depending on who does it?
Unfortunately, most of the time the answer to this question is yes.
By standardizing the work, you can solve this type of problem. Standardization is one of the basic principles in the Lean 6 Sigma approach.
Set your standards
In order to successfully manage change, involve your teams and take the time to establish with them the best steps in your process. Since everyone has their own experience, use it to determine as a team what will be the best course of action. Reach a consensus.
Document each step, clarify roles and responsibilities, determine who will take which step. Clarify expectations and take advantage of them to eliminate waste such as waiting, errors and travel.
Standardizing the work will also allow you to stabilize your process. By organizing tasks in the same way, your processes will be stable, and you will obtain better consistency in day-to-day operations. You will know the standard time each task takes, allowing you to assess the actual capacity of your operations.
With your standard times, it will be easy for you to plan work and validate the number of employees required for production.
This standard method that you have developed and written can then be used for training new employees and get them up and running faster. These standards will also be used during vacations and absences to guide and train replacements. Therefore, when someone is away, activities and results will be the same.
In addition, with these standardized times, you will be able to establish your standard manufacturing costs and check if your selling prices are good.
Would you say that standardizing is beneficial? Yes!
If you need help with your standardization, contact us.
Happy transformation!