TheOneDayExpert is built around the simple idea that in today’s highly competitive environment, industry, which has already harvest low-hanging fruits, cannot rely anymore on single-minded or one-size-fits-all tools. Experts with holistic view and deep insight are needed. Yet solutions must be made simple enough for everyone to master and own them. Alain Patchong is the founder of the TheOneDayExpert and author of a series of books on Standard Work. Alain also is the guest on next week’s Business901 podcast.
An excerpt from the podcast:
Joe: Would you recommend sometimes not using Standard Work? Are there times that it’s obviously besides let’s say repeatable, are there other times that you would shy away from it or is repeatable the key part of using Standard Work?
Alain: Standardized Work has no interest when there is variation when there is volatility when there is low repeatability. This can be due to a lot of causes. It could be just like this process is designed on purpose not to be repeatable – then there is no Standardized Work. But there is some occasions, some situations where it is simply due to the machine, the machine which is very, very unreliable, the machine which is all the product which is causing huge problems and so in those situations, my advice is start fixing those problems first. Start fixing making your machine reliable, so we can use tools like TPM or whatever.
If you try to implement Standardized Work when you have this environment with a lot of disruptions, first of all, operators will be frustrated because they are already frustrated by those stoppages which are coming over and over. But they’ll say, okay why are you focusing on us? First of all fix the problem. Fix all those machine stops. So fix them first and then you’ll get this credibility to be able to go ahead and start working on Standardized Work
Joe: I think it’s interesting when you say that because so many times workers, frontline people and nurses for a great example, they find workarounds to problems to be able to take care of things and make them work. When you try to implement Standard Work, they just look at you because there are so many other things going on, they’re like — and so that’s a great indication.
Alain: Yes, yes. That is what I explained in the first book actually. Is that okay? Before doing anything, okay well, fix all the problems because if you come — and this is what I’ve noticed during my personal life at Goodyear when I was implementing this. People are willing to work, they are willing to work with you in improving and doing Standardized Work but first, you have to show them that you are taking seriously the daily problems, the daily frustrations, and this is where we have to start first.
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