Stability and standardization work together to deliver OpEx

Define stability and standardization expectations.

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

When I read define stability and standardization expectations, I immediately think about a conversation I had with an executive vice president. He had sent me out to assess his plant performance. As I moved from plant to plant exploring SQDP as it existed for this organization, I discovered a consistent complaint. “The quality measure is garbage.” What I discovered, consistently from plant to plant, was that even though the quality mean was meeting expectations, the variance in the process made the mean nearly insignificant. Something must change.

When we began to prepare for the strategy deployment phase for 2016, I encouraged the team to examine the variation of the measure. I encouraged them to add a variance element to the quality target. A measure of central tendency and a measure of variability. Sounds to me like we were exploring the definition of stability. By including both measures in the quality evaluation we were also standardizing expectations.

There are two questions embedded in this thinking that many fail to see. The two questions I drum into my clients are these:

Are you following your standard work?
Are you creating the intended outcome?

This is my attempt to take PDCA to its most simplified and boiled down version. We could ask about the plan, the do, the check, and the act. I hope you see the relationship. How does stability and standardization have anything to do with this?

Stability and Standardization

Stability is about the target. Standardization is about the method of achieving the target. I am known for challenging my clients with this idea – operational excellence is about the outcome; continuous improvement is about the method. We cannot achieve anything without the presence of both pieces.

The first question – are you following your standard work – requires the existence of standardization. I often get what standard work as an answer. This is great. This helps us identify the primary root cause. Once we know where the root cause lies, we know where to conduct our work.

The second question – are you creating the intended outcome – requires the existence of a target. If there is no target, there is no way to answer the second question. There is also no way to assess the effectiveness of the process. ‘I don’t know if it’s working!”