“Standardized Work is a concept that is often misunderstood in the context of the lean journey. Many times we have heard the comment  that standardized work is going to make a bunch of robots out of us, and take away our ability to think. Our response is, on the contrary, standardized work in the Toyota culture does just the opposite. It is the baseline for improvement.” 

Toyota Culture  by Jeffrey Liker & Michael Hoseus (McGraw Hill, 2008) p. 163.