Dec 6 2013
Confusion Over Standards: Limits or Basis for Innovation? | Industry Week Blogs | Jeffrey Liker
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“As an undergraduate engineering student I spent a term in the offices of a nuclear power company writing standards. I sat at a desk, with a typewriter, and nuclear engineers fed me information while I wrote the standards. Standard 300.47.3.1. I had never been to a nuclear power site and had no idea what I was writing about, and I am pretty certain nobody at the site had memorized the tens of thousands of standards. They were aimed at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who audited the company so we could prove we were safe. To the best of my knowledge pieces of paper never prevented a nuclear crisis.”
Jeffrey Liker chimes in on the issue of standards. While efforts to clear up the confusion on this topic in the context of Lean are praiseworthy, I think the terminology of “Standardized Work,” and “Work Standards” itself is hopeless.
Every author uses them differently, there is no hope of achieving consistency, and the word “standard” comes with too much undesirable cultural baggage, as illustrated by Jeffrey’s anecdote quoted above. As a result, every discussion of this topic is Tower-of-Babel project review.
Just because Toyota in the US uses terms doesn’t mean we have to, as they often are mistranslations of its own, Japanese terms, which themselves are not necessarily clear.
That’s why I prefer to talk about “work combos” for specifying how different tasks performed at different stations are combined into an operator job that fills the takt time, and “work instructions” for the breakdown of each task into steps with key points.
Then we can reserve the word “standard” for external mandates and internally generated rules and protocols used, for example, in quality problem-solving with suppliers.
See on www.industryweek.com
Jan 1 2014
Internal Threat to TPS due to new Hiring Practices | Christoph Roser
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
“Toyota with its Toyota Production System is the archetype of lean manufacturing, which also makes it to one of the most successful companies on earth. This success is due to outstanding management at Toyota; however, recent changes in hiring practices threaten the Toyota Production System at its core.”
Now a professor at Karlsruhe University, Christoph Roser is an alumnus of Toyota Research in Japan, so he has first-hand knowledge of the topic.
Toyota’s response to the Aisin Seiki fire of 1997 is certainly a shining example of its supply chain management practices at work, but its relevance to employee hiring practices is not clear to me.
Also, one should not confuse dominating a meeting with getting decisions to go your way, and learning to say “No” rather than “It would be a little difficult” is just being culturally sensitive.
Having this ability carries no implication on a person’s character. Being articulate and assertive does not mean being selfish. Being selfish means only looking after yourself. Making sure that what you mean comes across clearly to the other side in a negotiation is perfectly compatible with seeking win-win solutions.
See on www.allaboutlean.com
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By Michel Baudin • Management 1 • Tags: Hiring, HR, Toyota, TPS