Introduction to Job Instruction
Job Instruction is a reliable method for teaching a person to do a job correctly, safely, and conscientiously.
This opening section introduces Job Instruction (JI) and explains where it fits in the work of a supervisor and in the larger Training Within Industry program. Job Instruction is a reliable method for teaching a person to do a job correctly, safely, and conscientiously. It is one of the three "J" programs of Training Within Industry, alongside Job Relations and Job Methods.
By the end of this section, you should understand:
- what Job Instruction is and why it matters,
- where Job Instruction came from and how it connects to the other TWI programs,
- the kinds of production problems that poor instruction creates,
- why training is a continual need, not a one-time event.
1What Job Instruction is
Job Instruction is a standard four-step method for teaching a person how to perform a job.
Job Instruction is a way to teach a person to do a job correctly, safely, and conscientiously.
The method is simple to state and demanding to do well. It rests on one idea that a supervisor must be willing to accept:
If the worker hasn't learned, the instructor hasn't taught.
This is the motto of Job Instruction. It places responsibility for learning on the instructor, not the learner. When a person cannot do the job after instruction, the JI response is not "they are slow to learn." The JI response is "the instruction was not good enough." Everything in the method follows from that stance.
"Telling" is not teaching, and "showing" is not teaching. A person can be told a hundred times and shown a hundred times and still not be able to do the job. Job Instruction is the disciplined combination that produces a person who can actually do the work.
2Where Job Instruction comes from
Job Instruction grew out of Training Within Industry (TWI), a program started by the U.S. government in 1940, just before the country's entry into the Second World War, to help defense industries raise quality and output quickly with a workforce that was expanding and turning over fast.
TWI consisted of several standardized programs for new and experienced supervisors:
- Job Instruction — how to teach a person to do a job.
- Job Methods — how to improve the way the job is done.
- Job Relations — how to lead people and handle problems with them.
- Program Development — how to use training to solve production problems. (A job safety program was added later by some users.)
More than 1.7 million people were trained and certified in at least one of these programs during the war years. After the war, TWI was carried abroad. In Japan it took deep root, and Toyota in particular built it into the foundation of its supervisor training. To this day Toyota treats Job Instruction and the other TWI elements as basic building blocks of how a leader develops people.
The broader history of TWI — its origins, the people who developed it, and how it spread in the United States and Japan — is covered in the Training Within Industry guide. This section keeps only the part needed to understand Job Instruction itself.
One often-cited wartime example: lens grinding for precision bomb sights was thought to be a "black art" that took five years to master. Broken down with Job Instruction into a set of major steps, the time to a qualified grinder dropped first to about six months and then to about four.
3What poor instruction costs
Every production area shares the same fundamental goals: quality, cost, delivery, and safety. Poor instruction works against all of them. When people are not taught a job well, the same problems appear again and again:
- products that do not meet specifications,
- excessive rejects and rework,
- standards and inspection requirements not followed,
- safety equipment not used properly, and injuries on the job,
- damage to tools and equipment,
- delays, interruptions, and missed schedules,
- people who take too long to become fully capable,
- standardized work not observed.
Products that miss specifications; excessive rejects and rework; inspection requirements not followed.
Damaged tools and equipment; scrap and rework that consume material and labor; standardized work not observed.
Delays, interruptions, and missed schedules; people who take far too long to become fully capable.
Safety equipment not used properly; unsafe methods; injuries on the job.
Most everyday production problems can be reduced — though not always eliminated — by better instruction.
What to notice: Not every problem is a training problem. But failing to provide basic training nearly always produces serious, predictable consequences.
The point is not that training cures everything. It is that a large share of common production problems trace back to people who were never properly taught, and those problems are within a supervisor's power to prevent.
4Why training is a continual need
It is tempting to think of training as something for new hires only. It is not. Teaching is needed whenever the work or the people change:
- when new employees arrive,
- when people transfer in from other areas or rotate to learn new skills,
- when a new product goes into production,
- when new machinery or equipment is installed,
- when a process, procedure, or quality standard changes,
- when engineering changes are made,
- when defects, rework, or accidents reveal a gap in skill.
Experienced employees need training as often as new ones. Changes in operations, revised standards, new work, and emergencies all require that people learn something new. Because the need is continual, the ability to teach is one of a supervisor's most important and most frequently used skills.
Treating training as a one-time event for new hires. Most of the teaching a supervisor does involves people already on the team, learning a changed or new piece of work.
Section summary
Job Instruction is a reliable four-step method for teaching a job correctly, safely, and conscientiously. Its guiding motto — if the worker hasn't learned, the instructor hasn't taught — places responsibility for learning on the instructor.
Job Instruction came out of Training Within Industry during the Second World War and became a foundation of Toyota's supervisor training. Poor instruction drives a large share of everyday problems in quality, cost, delivery, and safety, and the need for good instruction is continual because the work and the people are always changing.