Standardization and Continuous improvement: The two side of a samecoin February 2, 2011 by Prience Shrestha It's kind of an obscure ideology of complementing standardization on change. As per General English, change and standardization are inverse terminologies. Therefore, it is matter to wonder, how these two terminologies can complement each other in any subject. However, the Japanese management philosophy would in turn question, how an organization could prosper if change and standardization didn’t complement each other? Continuous improvement (or Kaizen in Japanese) is the foundation for the organizational growth as per Japanese Management Philosophy (Including Toyota Motor Corporation). It is through Kaizen that an organization fosters learning from the mistakes and the environment around. Without Kaizen an organization can never think of moving forward and becoming competitive. Similarly, standardization is the vital platform to realize/implement Kaizen . Meaning to say, it is through standardization that an organization realizes the expected outcome of Kaizen . Still Confused? The simple reason for an organization to keep learning and generating new ideas for process improvement is to finally realize better quality in the final product, cut cost or increase operational speed. And all these objectives can be realized only if the company standardizes the continuous improvement or the change factor. Improvements and changes is mostly about cutting the non-value adding items of the process, integrating departments (esp. designing and manufacturing), turning batch production to one-piece flow etc. Every improvement ideas is generally conceptualized in thought paper or preferably process charts, which indicates that the phase of generating change ideas is basically a concept and wouldn’t make sense unless it is put into practical. And most significantly, standardization is the best way to turn that conceptual idea of change into practical in order to gain the results from the intended improvement or change . In short, standardization is the bridge from concept of change to its implementation. Now the question is how could an inverse factor like standardization be the answer for continuous improvement or change? Standardization is the medium of replicating the conceptual process improvement or change in the factory floor. Every process improvement has a set criterion, for instance, cut the waiting time in in-process by practicing one-piece flow, cut the redundant quality check frequency by implementing at the source quality check etc. And, standardization is the medium to standardize the newly set criteria of a proposed process change in the operational process. Meaningfully, for every continuous improvement to provide its relevant outcome with the most actual implementation, the standardization of the set criteria of that confronted change must be equally stronger. Though inconvenient, standardization has been delicately positively correlated with change in this operation philosophy. In Japanese management philosophy, the concept of Poka yoke （避免犯错） is implemented to strengthen the standardization process. Poka Yoke can be practiced with a device that is programmed to stop the whole operation system in case the endurance level of a single bit of re-modeled standardized criteria of a change process is violated. This method has really been a great help in strengthening the overall standardization process. The outcome of dynamicity （动态性） or change can be only obtained if it is supported by a strong standardization procedure. Though, standardization has been misrepresented as a sense of inflexibility and rigidity, a delicate balance of it with Continuous improvement is the basis for a company to grow with change.
标签: 持续改进
