The US established the Training within Industry (TWI) Services as part of the War Manpower Commission in the summer of 1940.  At the time the US faced a significant challenge – how to increase industrial production of wartime materials while the industrial workforce was abroad, fighting the war.

In our daily lives, we come across examples of work instruction all the time - we follow cooking recipes, search for ‘How to’ videos online, try to understand the  user manual when setting up a new home appliance.

Do you have a bunch of cookbooks in your kitchen and yet, whenever you cook, you search online for a recipe with step-by-step images? Have you ever fixed a home appliance, or resolved a plumbing disaster, or revived your car in the middle of nowhere by following a YouTube video rather than the paper manual? Have you ever video-called a friend who knows how to fix or do something that you’re struggling with and followed their guidance? What you’ve searched for in any of those situations are visual work instructions.

Some might say that the manufacturing industry is facing a perfect storm in terms of workforce instability:

• an ageing workforce putting valuable tribal knowledge at risk

What is Standard Work?

Put simply, standard work is all about defining and implementing the most effective and efficient way to deliver value.

The term Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) was coined in the 1980s by Seiichi Nakajima and has since been used in Total Productive Maintenance to measure the total productivity of a machine or product line.

Let’s look at two shop floors – one depicted in the nineteenth century and the other photographed in the twenty-first.

Nearly half of organisations’ attempts to implement continuous improvement fail. We look at what might be the underlying causes and how fixing the feedback loop between planning and frontline execution can increase the success rate of adopting continuous improvement.

Whether managing a multi-tier supplier network or a handful of local suppliers, manufacturers are likely to face issues with supplier performance.

Imagine that you are having a new oven fitted in your kitchen.

Would you:

Have it fitted the right way the first time around, ensuring that it is perfectly functional from day one and works without a fault thereafter?

Industry 4.0 is transforming the way manufacturing operations are executed and monitored. Manufacturing companies are turning to new technological capabilities.

Developed in 1971 at the Japanese Institute of Plant Maintenance, the Six Big Losses in manufacturing have been used as a way to categorize equipment-based losses and maximize overall equipment effectiveness.

The affordability and quality of a product are fundamental determinants of customer satisfaction.