Lean Tools, Training, and Systems

Standard Cost Estimate template

How to use your Standard Work template to estimate standard costs and times

When to use your Standard Work

Cost Estimating template

Standard Work Estimating is an advanced tool for a mature lean process

If you have not yet gone to the gemba (the place where the work is performed)

to observe the actual process at least 10 times, then on your Standard Work document (created from your StdWork.xlsx template),

you should simply hide the columns for Standard Work Estimating, because you need to first observe the process. (in real life... not using paper standards)

Standard Work template data entry section

In this section of your Standard Work template, simply hide unused columns.

You will usually be doing one or the other: Time Observations or Estimating.
Hide the columns you're not using at the moment.

If you have already observed this (or a very similar) process many, many times

then Standard Work Estimating can be extremely useful:

to define time and cost standards for your accounting and inventory software
to quickly see the difference between your standard and observed times and costs
to use this as an estimating tool
1. for new product development
2. in a deliver-to-order environment — to estimate approximate times and costs for specific products within a product family that has a large (perhaps infinite) number of possible configurations

How to estimate time and costs using your

Cost Estimate template

Before you begin

Your leaders should have already personalized your master templates for your organizations Standard Work Elements, in both:

Your Standard Work template
(StdWork.xlsx)
Your Standard Work Elements template
(StdWkElements.xlsx)

If you are using the trial version,
(or your leaders have not yet done their job),
then you can learn from the sample data on the Sample worksheet.

If your leaders did their job, then the sample data has been overwritten with your own (real) Standard Work Elements

Tip: To restore the sample data to a temporary learning document,
you can import the sample data from the Sample sheet of the Standard Work Elements template,
following the instructions below.

Find and open your template

Find and open your Standard Work template

(StdWork.xlsx)

and/or your Standard Work Elements template

(StdWkElements.xlsx)

in the same way that you find and open your other 150+ Systems2win templates.

If you don't yet own a license,
you can download your free trial now.

Save your working document

following the usual document storage and naming conventions established by your leaders

Open a Blank Sheet

When you're ready to start doing your own real work...

click the button to 'Open a Blank Sheet'

Excel Ribbon > Systems2win tab > Open a Blank Sheet

This blank sheet is where you will do your real work

(not on the Sample sheet — which gives you sample data that is extremely helpful for learning how to use your new tool, but is the wrong place to do your real work)

Rename your new sheet.

If English is not your preferred language

Switch to your language, just like every Systems2win Excel template.

Now you are ready to start using your

Standard Cost Estimating template

Unhide the columns for Estimating

On the StdWk sheet of your StdWork.xlsx template, unhide the columns for Estimating.

(if they're not already unhidden)

Important: If you skip this step, you will get confused

Choose Time Type = Standard

In the pink double-border cell just above the Time column, use the drop down list to choose 'Standard'

And maybe play around a little, to notice how you can easily switch between 2nd Fastest Repeatable time, median, or Average Time, as well as the time that you observed using your Video camera, or the Standard time, which is what we are teaching on this page

Use the drop down list to select Standard Work Elements

As soon as you select a Standard Work Element from the dropdown list, each of the blue-shaded cells will auto-populate with data from the Work Elements Table that your leaders defined on the DV sheet.

ID or Description?

As delivered from Systems2win, the drop down list is in the Description column.

Some advanced users find it easier to search by ID.

Any user can easily switch, by copying and pasting the alternative ID and Description cells found near the bottom of the Sample data

Optionally enter a Quantity

Your Standard Work Elements often consist of very small chunks of common work, which might be repeated within a single line item.

Example:

The Standard Work Element is "Walk (seconds per meter)", and the Operator walks 3 meters... so you enter the 'Quantity' of 3 which multiplies the Standard Work Time of 0.2 by 3, for a Total of 0.6 seconds

Optionally Override

If you enter a value in the 'Override' column, then the 'Total' will use your override value, rather than the usual formula in that blue cell.

Never overwrite a blue cell

In any Systems2win template, a blue shaded cell contains a formula.

Rather than overwriting the formula, use the Override column.

Optionally enter a Frequency code

Learn how to use Frequency codes

and how to personalize your own Frequency codes

Analyze Standard Times

Use everything you learned in the training
for your Standard Work template
to analyze standard times for both:

The Run Cycle
See Run Cycle training video
The Shift or Batch Cycle

which includes Time per Unit for things like setups, change overs, inspections, and other things that don't happen every Run Cycle

(which is really the number that your accounting software is usually asking for, isn't it?)

See Shift Cycle training video

Analyze Standard Costs

The 'Cost' column will calculate costs using whichever Time Type that you choose

using the pink double-border cell at the top of the 'Time' column
to choose Repeatable, Median, Average Time, Video or Standard.

How to format Costs

You can optionally format the Cost cells for your desired currency and/or number of decimal places.

Right-click > Format Cells > Number tab > Currency

export

How to import

Standard Work Elements

from your master list of Standard Work Elements to each of your Standard Work documents

Before you begin

Your leaders should have already personalized both:

Your Standard Work template
Your Standard Work Elements template

Find and open your template

Find and open your Standard Work Elements template
(StdWkElements.xlsx)
in the same way that you find and open your other 150+ Systems2win templates.

Export Data

Click the button to 'Export Data'

Excel Ribbon bar > Systems2win tab > Export Data

Then in the dialog window that appears, choose a radio button.

Option 1) Export All Data

Standardized tools?
Oh no, man, everyone just
does their own thing
around here

This will export your entire list of all Work Elements to you target workbook.

Option 2) Export Selected Data

This will export only those rows of data that you selected before clicking the button to 'Export Data'

For example, your leaders might maintain one master list containing Standard Work Elements for all of your diverse processes

(or one for office and one for production... or one per product family...)

and then you might export only those rows that are relevant for each product or process

FAQ: Can we select split sections to export?

Yes. Hold down the CTRL key as you use your mouse to select rows.

After choosing either radio button, another window will appear where you will browse to choose the workbook to export to.

Make sure it looks right

If successful, a final dialog will appear, asking you to make sure that the imported data looks correct before saving and closing your target workbook.

Notice that the row above your imported table of Standard Work Elements provides the name and/or description of the source document, as well as the Revision Number and Date