5s - What exactly is it

The intent of 5s is much more than just housekeeping. It is more about creating and maintaining a standard, structured and efficient workplace. This has to be done with the involvement of those that work in the area with consideration being made for ergonomics and usage frequency.

The 5s’ 

The 5s’ are 5 Japanese phrases that begin with S (as do the English translations)

Seiri – Sort

This requires the work group from within the working area making some decisions on what is used regularly, what is either not used or used rarely and what within the area can be thrown out thereby ensuring only required items will be stored within the area.

Seiton – Systematic Arrangement

Now the team must decide on the best location for all items that are to be returned to the area. All items to be returned must have a space allocated and demarcated, making it visually obvious when things are missing, misplaced or out of position. Consideration must be given to ergonomics, manual handling and usage. Items utilised most often should be situated closest to the user progressively working outwards from the user as usage levels reduce. Likewise heavier items do not need to be stored in high positions or, for that matter, low positions.

Seiso – Shine

Everything to be kept in the area must be kept clean and tidy. This is not only good for the morale of the people working in the area but it also offers those an opportunity to check and inspect all items.

Seiketsu – Standardise

Once the area has been 3s’d, the agreed new standard has to be documented and displayed prominently in the area.

Shitsuke – Sustain

Regular inspection and maintenance is critical in the early stages of any change. 5s is no different. This is the responsibility of everybody.

How does 5s’ create customer value?

Quality – Quality is improved as the correct tools, parts etc., are located within the area of work and anything that is not required is removed. This makes the task of fitting incorrect or damaged parts or utilising the incorrect tool difficult at the very least and preferably impossible.

Price – As quality is increased reworks and defects are decreased. This cost saving can be reflected in the price, where appropriate, of the product/service ensuring competitiveness.

Lead times – Right first time percentages will increase and so lead time is reduced as a consequence.

How does the business benefit?

Safety – An organised workplace is a safe workplace.

Morale – Who wants to work in a place that is unclean, untidy and it takes you forever to find the things you need quickly?

Wastes Removed  - The immediate improvement will be in the reduction of Waiting and motion waste. Flow rate is increased as product/service/process/people does not have to wait whilst rework or replacement takes place. This in turn will mean that “just in case” Inventory can be reduced. Wherever we can reduce inventory levels will also mean reductions in Transport waste as we do not have to pay for the logistics involved in moving Defects around.

Benefit to the workforce

Ability to find things quickly, efficiently and consistently resulting in a lighter workload. Clean and tidy working areas.

Workforce role in 5s

Improve and sustain

Benefit to Managers

Visualises the area/workplace thereby offering an opportunity to challenge and discuss concerns raised when the visuals and the actuals do not match. In this instance there is something wrong, this must be investigated and corrected, in the name of continuous improvement.

Challenge – Any item where the actual does not match the expectation or standard.

Genchi Genbutsu -  When in the Gemba, non standard situations become obvious and therefore more difficult to ignore or bypass.

Continuous Improvement – Obvious variability from set standards require improvement to rectify.

Respect for people – Those, challenged variations, should be rectified by those that work in the area. There should also be a constant expectation that agreed standards are challenged for improvement by those that work within the area. As the work force is given back time, it becomes the managers responsibility to create focus on further improvement or ensuring that this newly available time is filled with other value adding tasks

Teamwork – Work groups improve the area themselves, with support.

Management role in 5s

Support teams by allowing them time.

Set clear expectations for both sustainability and improvement.

Challenge ALL non-standard situations.

NEVER ignore ANY non-standard situations, respectfully raise and challenge the situation, establishing a clear expectation for rectification.

Be visible and active in 5s activities and take part in sustainability measures.

Common Issues to look out for

3s fever – Any organisation that states “we have done 5s and it doesn’t work here” I can guarantee has not actually completed the 5s process. Most often what they have actually done is 3s. This is understandable because this is where the action is and where the visible and tangible improvements are evident. This fits well with those business cultures that are not supportive of Lean i.e. “we are happy to solve the same problem over and over because it makes me look like a hero rather than solve the issue once and for all allowing me to work on more value adding activities.”. 3s fever leads to areas that look great, short term. These areas soon become victim to “stealth” dumping and quickly revert to messy, disorganised and inefficient workplaces that hide all of the expensive wastes previously discussed.

Lack of Challenge – In other situations there is 4s, with the visuals and standards being in place. What is going on in these workplaces is that the manager does not really care. The result is that they do not set improvement expectations and they do not challenge any variation from the agreed standard. The managers lowest expectation becomes their people’s highest.

Old Standards – Occassionally improvements are made quickly and with little consideration for ensuring that documentation is aligned. When and wherever we have established a standard we should always make it a priority to ensure it is kept up to date. 

Summary

5s is a foundational tool of any Lean management system. It has the ability to highlight many wastes and has many benefits for both the organisation, their people and their customers. The state of an organisations 5s efforts is a fantastic reflection of the organisations leadership. Poor 5s equates to poor, or at least non supportive, Lean management systems.

The Purpose of becoming Lean

For Organisations

On my initial meeting with an organisations Leader the first thing I need to know is “Why Lean and what are your aims and goals of this engagement?”, this question, and asking it right at the outset of the engagement achieves 2 things for me. Firstly it gets the executive thinking in an open minded way and presents me with a window to challenge that thinking, and secondly, it allows me to assess the Leaders mindset and consequently the organisations culture.

Unfortunately most organisational leaders immediately begin to speak of cost reduction. Some may even state that they are attempting to “become the best” in their field of expertise, this without any real substance, vision or strategy of just how to achieve this end.

It is only truly enlightened leaders that have a vision beyond short term cost reduction and these leaders speak of growth, expansion and improving the working lives of their people. I see it as my challenge to help the less enlightened see how these things are the drivers for a truly successful transformational change effort.

To understand this, one must first understand the purpose of Lean and, in my opinion; the best place to get this information is direct from the horses’ mouth.

Taiichi Ohno is considered, by many, to be the father of Lean. He was a Japanese businessman whose work was fundamental in building Toyota’s production system which was later adopted in the US and named Lean.

On describing the Toyota production system and therefore Lean Ohno says:

“All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value adding wastes.”

This statement has no mention of cost reduction, only time reduction and, in practice, when you analyse the improvements that are made by the application of Lean tools they are all measured in time, not currency.

Of course we all know that time is money but Ohno’s statement is just one example of the many subtleties that are fundamental to Lean success and sustainability. It is all down to the way in which we look at and interpret our situation. It requires the correct mindset. There is a huge difference between having faith that cost savings will come if we focus on removing the wasteful things in our work, and focussing wholly but with blinkers, on cost reduction. A good organisation will focus constantly on safety, quality, on time delivery and its people as well as cost in equal measure. Favouring one over the others can result in catastrophic failure. For example what do you suppose might happen if an organisation focussed on DIFOT (delivery in full on time) over all other measures (SQCM)? As it becomes apparent that this measure is in danger of being missed panic ensues, more people are thrown into the mix, corners can become cut and work arounds become the norm. Consequently safety is at risk as there are more people in the same area, and with probably lower skill sets and familiarity, quality is at risk, “just make sure the order gets completed on time, no matter what!”. Also more people equate to more cost right? What do you think happens to morale in this situation?

An organisation that has been on their Lean journey for a little while will soon begin to realise that they are now able to achieve much more with much less. They will also realise that they now have a decision to make, how do they manage all of this extra time?

1.     Put extra effort into filling the newly created capacity with more product or new revenue streams.

2.     Reduce costs by removing people from the organisation and continue to produce the same volumes.

Be aware that any organisation that chooses option 2 also chooses to immediately end their Lean journey. Lean requires the people from within the organisation to be fully on board and engaged with the effort. There is nothing more guaranteed to kill an organisations morale than redundancy.

A truly Lean organisation is constantly shifting focus between sales and R&D, in order to fill capacity, and operations, to create the capacity for new revenue streams and increased sales.

For Managers

“I just don’t have the time” or “I’m too busy”, are common statements I hear from managers all the time. Managers are generally time poor and have their heads in the fire of daily operations to such a level that they become blinded to what is around them. They work on building-in short cuts and work-arounds just to get the job done and all too often they are commended for this behaviour. Unfortunately these things all incur associated costs and build in waste, and invariably the problems will just return time and again. In the long term and, inadvertently, they damage the organisation which they are so passionately trying to protect.

What Lean does for managers again, is give them back time. It aims to engage the manager’s people in solving their own problems (with guidance, of course) and have them removed once and for all, never to return. However Lean also aims to ensure that they never run out of problems on which to work, this we call continuous improvement.

For the workforce    

Making people’s life easier or better in some way is what drives me, and it is this that makes my work worth the effort I put into it. It is for this reason that I have worked with Lean for almost 20 years.

Visualising the workplace and standardising it through the application of Lean tools, presents everybody with the opportunity to optimise their work, their workplace and their working situation.

In my experience, when people go to work, they just want to do the best job they are capable of, with as little disruption or interference as possible. Anything that constitutes or creates these things is seen as an annoyance and only serves to create frustration and lower morale.

In Ohno’s statement he speaks of “reducing the non-value adding wastes” these things are generally the same things that people do not like having in their work, those things that create low morale, so anything that supports the removal of those things can surely only be a good thing.

The morale of the workforce soon begins to lift as they realise that they are spending more time on adding value and much less on those things that get in the way of them doing so.

Troy has almost 20 years of Lean experience both as a practitioner and Lean consultant across many industries including automotive, manufacturing, mining, oil and gas and bio technology.

Troy can be contacted by calling on 0477 428231.