Standardized Work is a Goal - Not Just a Tool in Lean Practices: Toyota Production System Concepts

By Mohammed Hamed Ahmed Soliman

The most important thing in standardized work is finding a balance between giving employees strict rules to follow and allowing them to be creative and come up with new ideas to consistently meet difficult goals like cost, quality, and delivery. The secret to finding the right balance depends on how standards are written and who helps create them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: personal-lean.org
• Release date: Oct 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215872031

Mohammed Hamed Ahmed Soliman

Mohammed Hamed Ahmed Soliman is an industrial engineer, consultant, university lecturer, operational excellence leader, and author. He works as a lecturer at the American University in Cairo and as a consultant for several international industrial organizations. Soliman earned a Bachelor's of science in Engineering and a Master's degree in Quality Management. He earned post-graduate degrees in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. He holds numerous certificates in management, industry, quality, and cost engineering. For most of his career, Soliman worked as a regular employee for various industrial sectors. This included crystal-glass making, fertilizers, and chemicals. He did this while educating people about the culture of continuous improvement. Soliman has more than 15 years of experience and proven track record of achieving high levels of operational excellence to a broad range of business operations including manufacturing, service and healthcare. He has led several improvement projects within leading organizations and defined a lot of savings in the manufacturing wastes stream. Soliman has lectured at Princess Noura University and trained the maintenance team in Vale Oman Pelletizing Company. He has been lecturing at The American University in Cairo for 8 years and has designed and delivered 40 leadership and technical skills enhancement training modules. In the past 4 years, Soliman's lectures have been popular and attracted a large audience of over 200,000 people according to SlideShare's analysis.. His research is one of the most downloaded works on the Social Science Research Network, which is run by ELSEVIER. His research is one of the most downloaded works on the Social Science Research Network, which is run by ELSEVIER. Soliman is a senior member at the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers and a member with the Society for Engineering and Management Systems. He has published more than 60 publications including articles in peer reviewed academic journals and international magazines. His writings on lean manufacturing, leadership, productivity, and business appear in Industrial Engineers, Lean Thinking, Industrial Management, and Sage Publications. Soliman's blog is www.personal-lean.org.

Book preview

The Origin of Standardized Work

In 1911, Frederic Taylor wrote a book called The Principles of Scientific Management. Later, in 2001, the Academy of Management voted it as the most important management book of the 20th century. His groundbreaking achievements in using engineering principles in factory operations significantly contributed to the establishment and advancement of a new field of engineering called industrial engineering (Taylor, 1919).

In simpler terms, early studies by Frederic Taylor focused on improving profits by carefully defining different tasks and holding workers responsible for completing them. Work standards have been a problem in some industries for a long time, particularly in the automotive industry. The aim has been to blame and punish workers for not meeting expectations.

In a traditional management setting, workers view work standards based on how much effort they need to put in or the level of effort required. By working this way, people who usually don't perform well can actually do a good job, and people who are already good at their work can do even better or work faster to have more free time.

In this model, a standard is set based on a wrong target. It's about finding a cheap and efficient way to do things, rather than trying to create the perfect plan. The goal is to reduce waste and produce high-quality products at a low price.

Toyota and Standardized Work

In the past, companies used to and some still use Taylor's principle in their management approach. In simple words, Taylor stated that only industrial engineers should start, make changes, adjust, adapt, and enhance the process. Workers need to listen to what the industrial engineers are saying. This goes against showing respect to people, which is one of the main principles in the Toyota production system. This is why Toyota is a successful company. Toyota's strength comes from its employees, not from its procedures.

Managers are worried that the Toyota Way will allow employees to do whatever they