Standard Work for High-Mix, Low-Volume Manufacturing

Why does standard work fail in high-mix manufacturing? You've tried it before. Binders full of procedures that nobody opens. Work instructions outdated before the ink dries. Tribal knowledge that walks out the door when your best operator retires. Traditional standard work assumes you make thousands of the same product. But you don't. You make fifty different products through the same cell, and the mix changes daily. The problem isn't discipline. It's design. This book shows you a different approach—one built specifically for high-mix, low-volume manufacturing. The breakthrough: standardize the process, not the product. About 80% of what your operators do is the same regardless of which product is running. Document that core once. Manage the 20% that varies through simple reference systems. One standard to maintain. One standard to train. One standard to improve. In this book, you'll learn: The Core/Variant/Conditional/Exception framework that makes variable work manageable Process standards that actually get followed—not binders that collect dust Setup sheets and reference systems that handle product-specific details Material standard work that ensures parts are where they need to be Inspection standard work that catches problems at the source Training matrices that show who's qualified on what—at a glance The three sustainment disciplines that keep your system alive past 90 days A complete worked example showing how all the documents connect This isn't theory. It's a project. By the end of this book, you'll have complete standard work documentation for one cell running one product family. Then you do the next cell. And the next. Cell by cell, the chaos becomes order. What makes this book different? Written for high-mix, low-volume environments where generic lean advice falls apart. No academic theory. No Toyota case studies you can't relate to. Just practical guidance from 20+ years on the plant floor. Volume 6 of the Lean Line Pro Deep Dive Series. Builds on the foundation of product families (Book 1), quick changeover (Book 2), cell design (Book 3), mixed-model scheduling (Book 4), and material flow (Book 5). Completes the standard work layer that makes everything else sustainable.