Standardized work is often misunderstood as rigidity or control. In Lean thinking, it’s the opposite: a shared baseline that makes problems visible, supports learning, and enables continuous improvement. This archive explores standardized work as a living system—one that evolves through observation, experimentation, and respect for people.
Examples range from healthcare and service work to manufacturing and everyday systems, showing how clear standards reduce frustration, improve quality, and make meaningful improvement possible.
Jenkins beats doping charge — chicagotribune.com Here’s an example of a testing lab not following their own industry standard work, an error that “vindicates” (in a way), an Olympic-caliber athlete who had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and appealed her…
New Yorker – Dr. Atul Gawande Here is an outstanding piece by one of my favorite medical writers, on the use of checklists (a form of Standardized Work) to improve healthcare quality. How can “a stupid little checklist” have such…
If you’re a regular reader, you might recall the Cedar-Sinai medical error that harmed Dennis Quad’s twins (and others). Quaid and his wife are now suing the maker of the drug, Baxter, claiming the company is negligent for not designing…
AP News | The Columbia Daily Tribune How’s this for government bureaucracy? People got creative in trying to save money to restock the New Orleans aquarium by chartering a boat to go catch fish instead of buying them. The catch?…
The Lean Thinker » What Nukes? I had been mulling over trying to do a post on this story since the original story broke in August that some nuclear-armed cruise missiles were “accidentally” or “mistakenly” moved from one base in…
‘I don’t want this to happen to anyone else’ This will happen again, unless the process is fixed. Lean can help. Please read on… I heard about this story this morning, this horrible tragedy where a 35-year old woman, Darrie…
The article isn’t online, you’ll have to join the club lucky enough (ahem) to fly American Airlines to read the gem of an article from American Way magazine titled “Pass the Buck to Make a Buck.” The main point is…
The Informed Patient – WSJ.com Here’s an article ($$) about hospitals working to prevent bedsores or “pressure ulcers” as they are called. I didn’t get around to blogging about this more fully, but it was in the news recently that…
Detroit Free Press Forums In my previous post, I questioned if GM was teaching true “Standard Work” to reporters who came to their training center in Lansing. My cynicism may have gotten the best of me, as it seemed, from…
GM teaches writers to build it right each time Updated: GM *does* do some kaizen in the class What we call Lean or TPS, they call “GMS”: General Motors Corp. touts its global manufacturing system as the reason it’s been…
In Bid for Better Care, Surgery With a Warranty – New York Times This outstanding NY Times article isn’t about “Lean” per se (they don’t call it out by name), but you can definitely see elements of Lean Thinking abound.…
Following up my earlier post about instructions for scooping ice cream, and key points, a blog reader , Bryan Lund submitted this commentary. Click here to download a Word doc version of the “Job Breakdown Sheet” that he created for…