Many manufacturers see reducing changeover time as a golden opportunity to improve operational efficiency and reduce waste. For good reason, a simple reduction in changeover time can increase output, reduce inventory/WIP, and improve responsiveness to customer demand.
Today we are happy to announce our collaboration with 3M, through an investment by 3M Ventures, to bring our standard work and work instruction training software to manufacturers of all sizes to help them achieve digital transformation goals.
When Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, was interviewed on NPR’s “How I Built This,” he revealed a valuable insight — sharing and improving knowledge is hard work.
Standard operating procedure (SOP) and work instruction templates help standardize processes and present information consistently. We’ve seen thousands of examples of these templates and the only consistency is their shortcomings.
Recently, I had a chance to visit one of our larger manufacturing clients. Of the many insights gained on that trip, one stood above the rest — tribal knowledge used to actually work.
At Dozuki, we’ve made it our mission to make Standard Work an industry standard. We envision documented standards and worker knowledge continuously improving alongside one another—finally removing them from their respective silos.
While on-the-job training is practical for certain applications, manufacturers rely on it too heavily as a method for on-boarding and training employees.