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Chapter 4
Standardized Work
Improvement is endless and eternal.
Toyota Proverb
Standardized work is our playbook: the safest, easiest, and most effective
way of doing the job that we currently know. At Toyota I came to under-
stand that
◾ There is no one best way to do the work.
◾ Workers should design the work.
◾ The purpose of standardized work is to provide a basis for
improvement.
Even our best processes are rife with muda. Therefore, standardized work
constantly changes.
Sadly, in many organizations standardization becomes a straitjacket,
another instrument of command and control management. “Thou shalt do
as I say,” thunders the senior manag ...