A GENEO perspective on standards, people, and modern operational excellence
Why Monozukuri and Hitozukuri still matter in a Digital World
Digital transformation has become a defining theme for operations leaders. Across manufacturing, life sciences, automotive, aerospace, and heavy industry, organisations have invested heavily in new systems, richer data, faster reporting, and increasingly sophisticated dashboards. In many respects, operations have never been more instrumented or more connected.
And yet, a quiet frustration persists. Despite all this technology, work on the floor still varies more than leaders would like, quality escapes still occur, and training still struggles to keep pace with change. Improvement still depends too heavily on a small number of experienced individuals who “just know how things are done”.
At GENEO, we do not believe this is because digital transformation has failed. We believe it is because much of it has been aimed at the wrong level of the organisation. Too often, technology is applied to manage outcomes before the work itself is truly understood and stabilised.
This is why two ideas that originated long before today’s digital tools — monozukuri and hitozukuri — are becoming increasingly relevant again.
Monozukuri, the discipline of making things with excellence, and hitozukuri, the discipline of developing people through work, are not cultural artefacts of a bygone era, they are practical, operational ideas. In a digital world, they are not less important; they are essential.
When digital transformation skips the work
Most digital initiatives in operations start with good intent. Leaders want better visibility, faster decision-making, and more consistent execution across sites. The natural response is to invest in enterprise systems, workflow tools, reporting platforms, and performance dashboards. These tools undoubtedly have value, however, they all share a common assumption: that the underlying work is already well defined, well understood, and consistently performed. In practice, this is rarely true.
Many organisations attempt to digitise performance before stabilising the process. They automate reporting before agreeing on a single best way of working, and they scale training before the standards are clear. The result is often a sophisticated digital layer sitting on top of fragile foundations. Dashboards become excellent at describing unstable work, so the SOPs exist primarily to satisfy governance rather than to support execution, and training programmes focus on compliance rather than capability. In these environments, technology introduces complexity instead of reducing it.
This is precisely the problem that monozukuri was always intended to address.
Monozukuri begins with respect for the work
Monozukuri is frequently translated simply as “making things”, but this misses its deeper meaning. At its heart, monozukuri is about respect for the work itself. It assumes that work can be understood, that variation can be reduced, and that quality can be built into the process rather than inspected at the end. True monozukuri requires clarity. It requires an explicit understanding of what must be done, what really matters in each step, and why those points are critical for safety, quality, or performance.
The challenge many organisations face today is that their standards no longer support this level of understanding. Traditional SOPs have gradually become longer, more technical, and more defensive. Written to cover every conceivable eventuality and to satisfy regulatory scrutiny, they often obscure the very things that matter most at the point of work. They rely on the experience and judgement of operators to interpret what is written and to bridge the gap between the document and reality.
In these circumstances, excellence in making things is no longer built into the system. It is carried by people, and Quality depends on memory, goodwill, and heroics.
From a monozukuri perspective, this is not a sustainable position.
Hitozukuri is not achieved through training alone
If monozukuri is about respect for the work, hitozukuri is about respect for the people who do it. It is about developing capability, judgement, and ownership over time. In many organisations, hitozukuri has become narrowly associated with training metrics. Courses are completed, certifications are issued, and skills matrices are updated. Yet Lean practitioners know that genuine capability does not come from classrooms or checklists. It is developed through doing the work, reflecting on it, and improving it.
People grow when they understand not just what to do, but why it matters. They grow when they are involved in defining the standard, when they can see cause and effect, and when leaders engage with them at the process rather than simply reviewing results. The difficulty is that many digital systems treat people as passive users. They are expected to follow instructions, acknowledge changes, and confirm completion. Rarely are they invited into the thinking behind the work or given ownership of how it is defined and improved.
Hitozukuri cannot flourish in an environment where people are separated from standards and improvement.
Standards as the meeting point of monozukuri and hitozukuri
At GENEO, we believe that standards are the critical bridge between making things well and developing people well. Standards are not documents, rather they are a shared expression of understanding. When standards are clear, simple, and owned by the people who do the work, they become a powerful mechanism for quality, learning, and improvement. When standards are vague, complex, or written by people far removed from the work, they become a barrier instead. This belief is foundational to GENEO’s thinking and is the reason GEN-OPS was created.
GEN-OPS: digitising understanding rather than paperwork
GEN-OPS was not designed to be another document repository or compliance tool. It was designed to help organisations truly understand, stabilise, and improve how work is done, at scale. To do this, GEN-OPS starts at the smallest meaningful level of work: the job element. Instead of beginning with long SOPs, work is defined step by step, with explicit key points and clear reasons why those points matter.
This structure has a profound effect, as it forces clarity and exposes gaps in understanding. It makes risk and quality explicit rather than implied; there is no place to hide behind generic language or assumptions about experience. By focusing on elements, GEN-OPS allows standards to be built from the ground up. Elements can be reused, shared, and improved. When an improvement is made, it is made once and applied everywhere that element is used. Over time, this creates a living digital representation of how work is actually done, not how it is described in theory.
This is what GENEO means by digitising understanding, not paperwork.
Managing complexity without burdening the frontline
Modern operations are complex. Product variants, derivatives, regulatory requirements, and changing demand all add layers of difficulty. Too often, this complexity is pushed down to the frontline through increasingly detailed instructions and exceptions. However, GEN-OPS takes a different approach by absorbing complexity upstream, through structured management of variants, derivatives, and change. What is presented at the point of work remains clear, stable, and focused on what matters.
This separation allows monozukuri to thrive in a digital context. Craftsmanship is not overwhelmed by complexity; it is protected from it.
Respect for people is built into the system
Perhaps the most important aspect of GEN-OPS is how it supports hitozukuri in practice. By involving frontline teams in the creation and improvement of standards, GEN-OPS treats their knowledge as an asset rather than a risk. Ideas, concerns, and problems are captured in context and linked directly to the work. Improvements are governed, implemented, and preserved through version control, ensuring learning is never lost.
Competency is linked to real standards, not abstract roles, and process confirmation becomes a coaching activity rather than an audit. This way, leaders gain visibility into capability and adherence without resorting to micromanagement. This is structural respect for people. It is not expressed through slogans, but through the way the system is designed.
Why monozukuri and hitozukuri matter more than ever
In an environment of labour shortages, increasing regulation, rising complexity, and constant change, organisations can no longer rely on tribal knowledge or a handful of experts. They need systems that capture understanding, develop capability, and sustain excellence over time. Monozukuri and hitozukuri are not alternatives to digital transformation; rather, they are the disciplines that give it meaning.
At GENEO, we believe the future belongs to organisations that build brilliant standards, develop people through work, and use digital tools to strengthen thinking rather than replace it. GEN-OPS is our contribution to that future.
In the next article in this series, we will explore why monozukuri breaks down when standards become documents — and what a different approach to standardised work makes possible.
Link to Part 2 – Why Monozukuri Fails When Standards Become Documents
Bob Newton is Customer Services Director at GENEO, supporting organisations to build brilliant standards that develop people, strengthen governance, and enable continuous improvement.