SDCA OK with TWI's JI

John McNeil, GP
 

As Hunzinger points out, Training Within Industry is closely linked to successful implementation of the PDCA cycle. PDCA is of course also known as the Deming Cycle, the Shewhart cycle, or the Deming Wheel and is an iterative four-step quality control strategy that can be wrapped around or mapped to the 6-sigma DMAIC cycle, our 9-step QIS cycle or shorter failure treatment cycles. PDCA was made popular by Dr. W. Edwards Deming; however it was always referred to by him as the "Shewhart cycle." Later in Deming's career, he modified PDCA to "Plan, Do, Study, Act" (PDSA) so as to better describe his recommendation to consider the long-lasting and sustainable results of Doing, rather than conducting a short check.

Indeed, the sustaining of the results from PDCA remains a critical challenge for any organization attempting to improve its operational effectiveness. That is why we refer to a second interlinked cycle: SDCA (or SDSA in homage to Deming). SDCA stands for Standardize, Do, Check, Act and it refers to the reinforcement and standardization of the processes necessary to deliver stable levels of the specified results. We use a diagram to illustrate this cycle:

Once Standard Work has been developed or specified (often by means of the PDSA cycle), it must be followed without fail to produce stable results. To do that, understanding of the necessary activities is taught by using TWI's Job Instruction. As a result of the unprecedented, extensive study of new workers entering the workplaces of the second World War, the originators of TWI found that specific preparation steps and specific teaching steps provided the best overall job instruction. As simple as these steps seem, our own experience shows that they are seldom followed in untutored practice and that they must be drilled and learned themselves, just as the job steps must be.

Preparation

The specific preparation steps are:

• Make a timetable—Who is to be trained in what and when
• Break down the job
  • Select only the Important Steps that advance the work
  • Emphasize and standardize Key Points
    • Those that make or break, that are vitally important, and have been shown to fail in practice
    • Those that do or can injure workers
    • Those that can be performed more easily
• Get everything ready—Equipment, tools, materials
• Arrange the worksite—Neat, actual working conditions

Conduct the Training

• Prepare the workers
  • Put them at ease
  • State the job
  • Find out what they already know
  • Get them interested in learning the job
  • Place them in the correct position
• Present the operation
  • Tell, show, and illustrate one Important Step at a time
  • Do it again, stressing Key Points

Instruct clearly, completely and patiently, but don't give them more information than they can master at one time.

Try Out Performance

• Have them do the job. Correct errors.
• Have them explain each Important Step to you as they do the job again
• Have them explain each Key Point to you as they do the job again

Make sure they understand. Continue until you know they know.

Follow Up

• Put them on their own
• Designate whom they go to for help
• Check on them frequently
• Encourage questions
• Taper off extra coaching and close follow-up over time

Follow these steps and you will have conducted complete and effective job instruction. Effective job instruction, coupled with effective treatment of the inevitable failures in standard work (both in execution and in results) embodies the true standardization of work. Thus the job instruction component of training within industry is a central component of effective standardization leading to key-process stability. Indeed SDCA can really only be OK with TWI's JI.

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