ABSTRACT
A fter discussing in detail the concepts of flow in a mixed model environment, the management team at EMC Supply began to understand how they could apply these concepts to their products. However, they soon began to realize that a high variety of products in the same cell would require the operators to learn and remember how to build each product correctly. They would also have to perform the work in the same amount of time each time. Otherwise, how would they ever hope to consistently balance the cycle time to the takt time? The team was concerned that setting up a cell in this manner would lead to quality problems along with poor productivity. We shared this concern and explained that there is a key element needed to create flow in a high-mix environment. That element is standard work.
