In the world of Lean Management, and business systems in general, there exists a pair of words that are similar, but not the same. And they are equally important in business.
The words: Standards and Standardize.
Let’s take a look at what they mean in business.
Standard
The word standard is a noun (in this context). It’s something that is used as a basis of comparison. In business, it’s the bar that’s set that everything has to conform to, or be found lacking.
You can think of this in terms of quality. You want your product to be of a high standard. You want all of the products you make to then be as high, or higher quality (standard).
It could also be something that is used as the basis of comparison for size or something. If you write ebooks for sale, and you set the standard for yourself that every book needs to be 10 pages or more, then that is a size standard.
Essentially, a standard is something to which you can compare other same or similar somethings.
Incidentally, standards typically are measurable.
- Ebook length
- Jewelry pendant metal weight
- Monthly income
- Defects per 100 units produced
- The average number of unsubscribes per email sent
- The number of views on a new TikTok video in the first 24 hours of posting.
All these can be standards.
Your business standards might be arbitrary (you have to start somewhere), or they could be developed from meticulous data collection and analysis, or they could be somewhere in between.
Standards can change.
In fact, in many cases, they should change. Not necessarily immediately, but certainly over time.
Standardize
The word standardize is a verb.
It’s making something to a given standard (Making standardized jewelry pieces). Or, it’s comparing something to a given standard (standardized testing).
The very act of choosing a standard for any output of your business can be considered standardizing.
Even if the standard is arbitrary.
But, you can also think of it as making something the same way, or in the same form, every single time. (A standardized process.)
However, you could have a standard you want your output to reach. But, you may not actually have a standardized process that will help you achieve that standard of output every single time.
In many commonly manufactured products, they have standardized parts. In this respect, it’s critical that every part is manufactured to the standard set for that part, or else the final product might not be able to be assembled.
Sometimes these standards have a narrow range of accepted variation, and in others, there’s more leeway.
Standards in Lean
When you start getting into Lean Management, you’ll hear terms like Standards and Standard Work being tossed about. And many times, standards used in lean are a guideline, a basis of comparison. They are used with the purpose of identifying whether or not something needs to be changed (improved).
In this case, any given standard in Lean is “the best way we know to do it today” (process), or the “goal we want to achieve for this outcome today” (measurement of output).
The thing about Lean is that it’s a management system focused on continuous improvement. And, you can only improve what you measure.
Therefore, you must have standards set for those things that are critical to your business.
And also why I stated above, that many of these standards should change over time. They should be improved.
It’s also why, in many cases, the word “standardized” as in “standardized part” or “standardized process” is not as flexible as something that is just a standard, or standard work (process). A standard is the goal to be met, but that goal can change.
Don’t set a standard for the sake of setting a standard.
Create standardized processes to ensure quality, cost, or safety.