Standardized Work — Toyota-Style Training Course (Five Sessions)
A five-session Standardized Work training course in the pattern Toyota uses internally, translated by Art Smalley from material prepared by Isao Kato, with the read-me introduction, session slides, and working forms.
Standardized Work is one of the most important and most misunderstood elements of the Toyota Production System. Inside Toyota, most people learn it on the job, but formal courses exist for supervisors and engineers. The typical pattern is a week-long course meeting a couple of hours each day, led by a certified instructor.
For over two decades the person in charge of developing the Standardized Work training material and certifying trainers at Toyota was Isao Kato. After retiring, Mr. Kato shared a version of the course he assembled for private use. It stays true to the original and expands in a few places for audiences outside Toyota. Art Smalley translated the material. As the read-me notes, the material is geared toward discrete parts, repetitive demand, and similar cycle times; other Toyota methods exist for situations outside those conditions.
The five sessions:
- Session 1 covers the role of a leader in TPS, corporate philosophy, and the background and goals of TPS.
- Session 2 covers the importance of standardization, the various standards sheets, and the difference between standardized work and work standards.
- Session 3 covers the basic concepts of standardized work, the process capacity sheet, and time measurement practice.
- Session 4 covers the standardized work combination table, the standardized work chart, and the relationship between work standards and standardized work as a basis for continuous improvement.
- Session 5 covers how to view continuous improvement, managing the shop floor based upon standardized work, and TPS as standardization plus waste elimination.
Read the introduction first. It explains the provenance of the material and the conditions under which pure standardized work applies.