The Symphony of Standard Work

I heard an interesting comment about Standard Work the other day. A reader asked why someone just didn’t create a Standard Work document on writing a symphony so anyone could be a composer.

It’s always hard to tell someone’s meaning on a short comment like that. It could be taken as an endorsement of the power of Standard Work, or it could be a sarcastic critique on how Standard Work removes creativity from the workplace.

Regardless of the intent, it made a light bulb go off in my head. Sheet music is, in fact, Standard Work. OK, granted, it is a bit of a stretch to apply the concept of takt time. You can’t just add musicians and rebalance the work to meet an increasing customer demand.

But most of the other components of Standard Work apply. There is a prescribed sequence of operations. Play the notes out of order, and the musical flow fails. Install parts in the wrong sequence, and chaos reigns.

There is work assigned to individual operators. The flutes get their own music. The tubas get their own music. And on an assembly line with multiple people in a work station, each will get their own Standard Work.

The timing is also important in both. Play too fast, and the music sounds bad. Work at the wrong speed and the flow of a process is all out of whack. The timing provides the harmonies in music, and enables the coordination of multiple people in a production process.

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