Lean for Beginners: Cannabis · Lesson 6 of 10 · Week of November 16

Standard work, 5S and visual management

Lessons 4 and 5 were about the flow of work between areas. This lesson goes down to one station and one job. Three ideas work together there. Standard work writes down the best way we know today to do a job. 5S sets up the station so the job is easy to do the same way every time. Visual management makes it obvious, at a glance, when the work is on track and when it isn't.

By the end of this lesson you can:

say what standard work is in Toyota's sense, and how it differs from a procedure in a binder;
explain why standard work is the baseline you improve from;
name the five S's and say what each does, including what Sort means when the item is product;
give examples of visual controls, and say which ones the regulations already require;
keep a written procedure and a station chart telling the same story.

You need Lessons 1 to 5 first. This one uses takt from Lesson 5, and the rule from Lesson 1 that required steps get improved, never deleted.

Standard work: the best way we know today

In Toyota's meaning, standard work is the team's current best way to do one job. It is defined by three things:

Takt time: the pace the customer sets, from Lesson 5.
The work sequence: the order one person does the steps in, within takt.
Standard stock: the small amount of work in progress that has to be at the station for the job to run smoothly.

It is posted at the station, where the person doing the job can see it. And it is not fixed forever: it is the thing the team improves. The Lean Enterprise Institute calls it the baseline for kaizen. You can't tell whether a change helped unless you know what the job was before.

It isn't the same as a procedure in a binder

A procedure in a binder says what has to happen and why. Standard work, in Toyota's use of the words, is a working chart built on how a person actually does the job: the sequence, the takt, the stock, the quality checks and the safety points. Both have a place. A binder that nobody reads at the station isn't doing the job of standard work.

A licensed cannabis operation has to have and follow detailed written operating procedures (935 CMR 500.105(1)). That makes the gap between the written procedure and what happens on the floor a compliance question as well as a Lean one. We come back to it below.

Two mistakes to avoid. Standard work is not the fastest person's pace written down as a target for everyone else. It is the best way known today, and a person at normal pace should be able to do it. And it is not a one-time document. When someone finds a better way, the standard changes, and everyone gets the new one.

Teaching the standard: show, do, follow up

A standard nobody has been taught is only a piece of paper. During the Second World War, a US government program called Training Within Industry (TWI) taught supervisors a four-step method for training a person on a job. Toyota still uses it for its team leaders.

Prepare the worker. Put them at ease, find out what they already know, and say why the job matters.
Present the operation. Show the job one step at a time, and say the key points.
Try out performance. Have the learner do it, and say the key points back, while you correct.
Follow up. Put them on their own, tell them who to ask, and check on them often at first.

The tool behind step 2 is a job breakdown: the job's important steps, the key points for each step (things that make or break the job, or make it safer or easier), and the reasons for the key points. The program's slogan says it all: if the learner hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught.

Training also carries weight in a licensed operation. 935 CMR 500.105(2) requires agents to be trained before they perform their job functions, with 8 hours of training each year, 4 of them Responsible Vendor Training. It counts basic on-the-job training toward the 8. Training records must show the date, time, place, topics and presenter, with a signed statement (500.105(9)). Ask your compliance lead what your site records.

5S: a place for everything

5S has five steps. The Japanese words each start with S.

Sort (seiri): take out what isn't needed.
Set in order (seiton): give everything that stays a place, so it can be found and put back.
Shine (seiso): clean, and look for what the cleaning shows you.
Standardize (seiketsu): make the first three the normal way, with visible standards.
Sustain (shitsuke): keep doing it, as a habit.

The point isn't tidiness for its own sake. The point is a station where problems show. When everything has a home, a missing tool or a stray item stands out at once. Where 5S began is disputed, and the Lean Enterprise Institute notes that Toyota has traditionally used four S's, with audits covering the fifth. Some people add a sixth, safety. Either way, the practice is the same: let the people who work at the station decide how it's arranged.

Sort doesn't mean bin it

When the thing you've found is a tool or a box, Sort means move it out. When it's product, the regulations decide. Outdated, damaged, mislabeled or contaminated product has to go to a separate area set aside for it (935 CMR 500.105(11)(b)). Waste is disposed of through a documented process, ground and mixed and witnessed by two agents, with records kept for three years (500.105(12)). So the Lean "red tag" area for unneeded items already exists for product, with rules on how things leave it. Don't dispose of anything on a 5S day that you couldn't dispose of on any other day.

Shine and the rules

Cleaning is partly required. Processing has to be done on food-grade stainless steel tables, with no bare-hand contact, with hand-washing available, and with contact surfaces cleaned with an EPA-registered sanitizer as often as needed (500.105(3)). Federal workplace rules also require clean, orderly, sanitary workplaces (29 CFR 1910.22). The regulation asks for clean, orderly storage. It doesn't ask for 5S by name, so don't tell anyone it does.

Moving things around

5S moves things inside a room. Changes to the building itself are different. Structural changes to the premises that aren't just cosmetic need the Commission's approval first (935 CMR 500.104(1)(c)). Moving a table or taping a floor is one thing. Taking out a partition is another. Ask your compliance lead before you change the layout of the premises.

Visual management: see it at a glance

Visual management puts tools, parts, activities and indicators in plain view, so the status of the work is clear at a glance. A good visual control answers a question without anyone having to ask it: is this station ahead, behind or in trouble?

Common visual controls:

Shadow boards and labeled shelves: an outline or a label where each tool or item belongs, so a missing one shows.
Floor lines and color coding: marked places for carts, totes and walkways, and colors for different products or statuses.
Kanban and boards: the signals from Lesson 4, and a board showing plan against actual.
Andon: a light or board that shows the station's status and calls for help when something abnormal happens, set off by a sensor or by the person at the station pulling a cord or pressing a button.

Cannabis operations already have some visual controls by law. Limited access areas must be marked with signs (935 CMR 500.110(4)(a)). Employee badges must be visible, and visitors badged and logged (500.110(4)(d), (e)). Manufacturers also keep written policies, such as edibles sanitation and extraction fire safety, and a product catalogue with a photo, the packaging and the dosage (500.130(5)). Labels have set content, such as batch number, net weight, cannabinoids and the test statement (500.105(5)), and that content makes a ready-made list of key points for the label step.

Required steps stay. A visual control around a required step, such as an ID check at the counter, makes it easier to do the same way every time. It never replaces the step.

One standard, in two layers

The regulation says to have and follow detailed written procedures, and it lets inspectors look at them (500.105(1), (9)). Standard work says the chart at the station is the working standard. If those two say different things, you have a problem in either world.

I found nothing in the regulation that sets how procedures must be revised, approved or formatted. Here is a practical way to keep one source of truth, in two layers:

The policy-level procedure, kept under control: what has to happen, why, and which rule it answers to.
The station chart and job breakdown, posted: how the work is done, the key points, and the number of the procedure it belongs to.

When a kaizen changes a step, change both, and record the training on the new way. Ask your compliance lead what your inspectors expect to see. This is one of the things that is worth asking before the inspection, not during it.

The arithmetic: one jar-packing station

Every number below is made up to show the steps. Yours will differ, and none of these is a benchmark.

An example, with made-up numbers. One station packs jars. The shift is 480 minutes, less 60 for lunch and breaks and 30 for start-up and clean-up, so 390 minutes are available. That is 23,400 seconds. Demand is 1,170 jars.

Takt: 23,400 ÷ 1,170 = 20 seconds a jar. Check: 1,170 × 20 = 23,400.
One person doing it all: pick jar and lid 2 s, tare 2 s, fill 8 s, seal 4 s, label and tag 6 s, scan 3 s. That's 25 seconds.
Does it fit? 25 is more than 20. 1,170 × 25 = 29,250 seconds, or 487.5 minutes. That is 97.5 minutes more than the 390 available.
Split the job: person A does steps 1 to 3 (12 s) and person B does steps 4 to 6 (13 s). The slower is 13 seconds, under the 20-second takt. Together they can do 23,400 ÷ 13 = 1,800 jars, against the 1,170 needed. The load is 1,170 ÷ 1,800 = 65%, which is the same as 13 ÷ 20.
Standard stock: five jars on the tray between A and B. The chart shows takt 20 seconds, the sequence for each person, and a stock of 5.
5S at the same station: suppose people hunt for labels, ribbon and tags 4 times a shift, 90 seconds each time. That's 360 seconds. With labeled homes for each, it takes 10 seconds a time, 40 seconds in all. That saves 320 seconds, or 5 minutes and 20 seconds, every shift.

Scan, label and tag are required steps. They stay in the chart. Nothing above changes what the step has to do. It only changes who does it and how easy it is to find the tools.

Notice what standard work did here. It didn't ask anyone to go faster. It showed that one person can't keep up with takt, and it split the job so that two people comfortably can.

Knowledge check

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Your task: look at one station

This is a 20-minute walk, not a project. Look first, and change nothing.

Pick one station: packing, a trim table or a back-room shelf.
List what is within arm's reach, and mark anything that went unused while you watched.
Count the items that have a labeled home, and the items that don't.
Find one visual signal. Can you tell at a glance whether the station is ahead, behind or in trouble?
With permission, ask one person whether a written way to do the job exists, and whether it matches what they do.

Write down three counts and one sentence. Leave out brands, product details and customers. Don't take photos of people, product or IDs.

Open the printable station sheet

Your floor, your data. What you write on a worksheet stays with you. It is paper, and nothing you write on it reaches this site. If you talk about your floor in public, keep it general: leave out license numbers, batch or package IDs, supplier and customer names, and any number your employer treats as confidential.

Sources

Where the facts in this lesson come from. Facts last checked October 1, 2026. If you find one that is out of date or wrong, tell me.

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