Masaaki Imai: Standard

“It is impossible to improve any process until it is standardized. If the process is shifting from here to there, then any improvement will just be one more variation that is occasionally used and mostly ignored.”

Masaaki Imai

“Where there is no standard, there can be no improvement. For these reasons, standards are the basis for both maintenance and improvement.”

Masaaki Imai

Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy, Second Edition (ed. McGraw Hill Professional, 2012), ISBN 9780071790352

“One must standardize, and thus stabilize the process, before continuous improvement can be made.”

Masaaki Imai