5S
In the Introduction to 5S we met the five steps and discoverd their names in Japanese, English and Vietnamese. Let’s remind ourselves óf what they are with another look at those words.
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
Seiri
Seiton
Seiso
Seiketsu
Shitsuki
Sort
Set in Order
Shine
Standardise
Sustain
Sàng lọc
Sắp xếp
Sạch sẽ
Săn sóc
Sẵn sàng
Following, I will give you an idea on how to successfully implement the 5S methodology. This will not be extensive as every situation in different workplaces will have many variations to look at and discover. However, an experienced 5S coordinator can recognize these differences fairly quickly and assist greatly in the implementation. Like all thing in life and business, good preparation is vital.
S1 - Sort
In our everyday life, in our employment, in our social life and on the punt we all tend to retain items and not discard enough of all manner of things we do not use anymore. Whether you are that hoarder, have sentimental feelings towards inanimate items or have been instructed by others not to throw things away, we all keep useless items that just take up space, valuable space especially when you are paying rent on it.
“It’ll come in handy one day” is a phrase we have all uttered. In fact, most of that junk, and yes it is junk, will never play a useful role in our lives ever again.
Left over pizza that will taste great for brekky in the morning?
That pair of footy boots we kicked 4 goals in one day.
The bridesmaid dress that we wore to our former BFF wedding.
The screw driver that has half its tip missing.
Or collecting too many form guides in preparation for race day.
THEY ALL NEED TO GO!
In the workplace the best way to do this is to form a RED TAG committee that includes workers from the bottom up, from cleaners and right up to top management.
But firstly, you need all employee’s to “buy into” the idea of introducing 5S.
You need to have a strong management team in place when you seek employee “buy in” into the implementation of the 5S methodology at your company. This is essential, prior to any discussions with the employees’. However, we are warning you that some people in your management team maybe the largest stumbling blocks in the entire process of firstly introducing 5S and then implementing the 5S methodology. It’s “their” system and they will be the ones that resist change vehemently and 5S is a major change. If you have a recalcitrant manager, cut the snake off at the head. Ditch them completely. If you, as the owner of the company or in your role of CEO think change needs to be made, you will not succeed with one person being uncommitted to the project.
Give all employee’s the ability to Red Tag anything and everything. Sort, will dictate to and determine the success of the entire implementation of the 5S methodology. The business owner and/or management must accept that there will be pieces of equipment, tools, inventory and other items that must be removed from the work place.
We recommend that that one of the senior managers be the leader of the Sort Arbitration team and with the team, prepare the guidelines for the arbitration that must occur.
The following will occur,
· The selection of the SORT Arbitration Team.
· It is suggested that the senior manager be named as the final arbiter in the SORT process and when a timetable is able to be produced, the final arbiter is only required to attend the final session/s of the Sort process.
· Part of the SORT guidelines will say that any person can place a Red Tag on any item in their immediate work area
· The Red Tag must have the name of the person who Red Tagged it, what the Red Tagged item is and the area it was in when the Red Tag was placed.
· Part of the SORT guidelines will/must say that no person can remove a Red Tag from any item in their immediate work area (or anywhere else).
· A general rule of thumb for placing a Red Tag on an item is that if the item has not been used in the previous 30 days, Red Tag it.
· The SORT arbitration team will decide who has what level of authority for the disposal of Red Tagged items.
· A Red Tag Holding Area needs to be designated.
The major decisions need to be taken by the arbitration team are,
A. Which items will be returned to the area from which they were removed?
B. Which items need to be returned to another area?
C. Which items need/can be removed from the premises?
From C. above, a policy needs to be developed as to,
· Which items need to be destroyed or sold as scrap?
· Which items can be sold as is?
· Which items can be given away and to whom?
· Plans need to be made to as how these instances can be achieved once a decision has been made.
· The plans need to be recorded and approved by management
· The Red Tag design needs to be prepared and approved by management
· The approved Red Tag design needs to be printed in the correct quantity. Don’t cause additional waste by printing too many.
· Everyone should have by now attended the 5S training course.
I have designed a presented a 5S training course that is easily presented and more importantly easily understood.
Get the Red Tags distributed to anybody willing to apply them, have them applied, the items they have been placed upon assessed and then do what you must do, follow up with your plan to “use it or lose it”.
How do we Sort?
• Remove all items not needed for current production or operations.
• Leave only the bare essentials: “When in doubt, throw it out”. Use the 30 day Rule.
Why do we Sort?
• Space, time, money, energy and other human resources can be managed and used more productively.
• Reduces bottlenecks in our work flow.
• Improves communication between workers, workers and management.
• Raises product quality.
• Hikes productivity.
• Gives us back valuable floor space.
• For greater profitability
We Sort to avoid.
• Our work place becoming increasingly crowded, dirty and disorganised.
• Unneeded items getting in the way of quality production flow.
• Time wasted searching for tools and other equipment.
• Unneeded inventory.
• Excess stock hiding production problems and defects.
• Unneeded items and equipment making it harder to improve the process flow.
• Unneeded inventory
S2 - Set in Order
“A place for everything and everything in its place”, is how myself and many other 5S professionals best like to describe the second part of the 5S methodology, S2 Set in Order.
We want to keep items and work flow in an organised way.
The 5S committee will have done a great job so far and they are only 1 step into the process.
Now S2, Set in Order
COMMITTEE WORK
It is time to do a mini GEMBA walk and this time we should do it in groups of 3 or 4, depending on the size of your 5S committee. Considering allotting one of two of the observations to be made by individual groups. If you specialise the GEMBA observation work, make sure that the Chairman tells each group to generalise about the observations they are not specialising in.
Then, the entire committee should get together and brain storm on the work flow between processes and the work flow in individual processes. Get the colander out, dry off the spaghetti and make things flow directly.
If there is no person on the committee with experience in Single Piece Flow, appoint someone to get a general understanding of this important work process system. If Single Piece Flow cannot be applied, more work will need to be performed on how a Btach Flow system will best work.
Steps involved to make a spaghetti diagram are:
Identify the product (usually the most being produced at the time) in the line. Trace the person if movement between workstations is involved. Trace the product flow as manufacturing takes place.
Map the flow on a layout (can be a handwritten drawing).
Brainstorm changes as necessary. Soon after, freeze on these changes.
If necessary redesign the layout. It will be necessary even if only a for tiny redesigns.
Set a “search” time of 30 seconds for when any worker will be looking for a tool or piece of equipment. That’s 30 seconds to get the piece, not 30 seconds to arrive at the search site. Test this and see if the 30 seconds is achievable.
Then as an entire committee again,
Design the walk ways and machinery positions
Design material storage systems
Design workstations
Do trolleys need a redesign
Design signboards and put someone in charge of sign boards and their labeling system/s
Design and write Standard Operating Procedures
Here is a tip to make sure the “big” things are done correctly, make sure one of the smallest tasks is completed properly.
For example.,
Make sure that you do have notice boards around your premises, the bigger the premises the more notice boards. Maybe use white boards so that information can be updated almost immediately. The one small thing you need to do is label the place where the white board marker must be returned to. There s nothing worse than going to post new information on the white board and not being able to easily locate the marker. This will also demonstrate to others what is required of them, beginning at the implementation of S2 and onwards. As you continue on with notice board you should have the target in mind that every notice board on the entire premises contain the same information dislayed in an identical manner.
Then as an entire committee, implement the plans that have been conceived through the commencement of operations. We are talking 5S here and 5S and other Lean methodologies are about continuous improvement, so in that manner, try to never use the word “complete” during the implementation stage.
Don’t forget that at some stage during the process you will need to order equipment to be used, anything from those shadow boards, white boards and markers up to the appropriate colored tape to mark walk ways and other areas on the floor.
Remember that our committee is made up of people from all over the company including Administration and Management. If you have never stepped foot in a production facility before and are hesitant about offering up suggestions there are a couple of points to keep in mind.
There is always the maxim that we have all used at some time “there are no wrong suggestion in brain storming”. And secondly, the factory floor is just like your desk or workstation that you sit at most days. If you are organised, when sitting at your desk, you will have the items that you use everyday at your fingertips, close to you. You will have the things that you use, say weekly, a little bit further away but not so far away that you will need to stand up to locate them, say in your three drawer rolling desk cabinet. Then you will have the things that you use say once a month a little further away again, maybe in a filling cabinet that you actually have to stand up and walk to to locate this item. See, you do know how a factory should be organised and of course, you always remember to place all of those items back where you first found them when you’re finished using them. Hat tip to Harry Butler “always put things back”. In a factory someone else will need them soon enough and one of our aims is to eliminate searching.
If you use an item daily, keep it close by
If you use and item weekly, it does not need to be as close to you.
If you use an item monthly, it can be placed further away again.
Use the above set of diagrams as your “rule of thumb”when deciding where an item should be placed. Maybe this exercise may encourage you to re-visit the S1 Sort step and reconsider if some items need to be kept at all!
Why do we keep knives, forks and spoons together in one drawer? Because they go together.
Why do we keep plates, bowls, cups and saucers together in one cupboard? Because they go together.
Why do we keep the gin, dry vermouth and swizzle sticks together? Because a classic gin martini should be stirred, not shaken.
And that friends is how we get S2 underway and towards productive implementation. That is why we also have representatives from many areas of our company on the committee. Everyone has something to offer and some of the best ideas can come from unlikely sources, our “ah ha” moments.
But before we go on,
The Classic Gin Martini - from Colleen Graham and thespruceeats.com
Ingredients (S1)
2 1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce dry vermouth, or to taste
1 dash orange or aromatic bitters, optional
Lemon twist or 1 or 3 olives, for garnish
Preparation (S2)
Gather the ingredients
In a mixing glass filled with ice cubes, combine the gin and vermouth, pouring more or less vermouth to your taste.
Stir for 30 seconds
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass
Add a dash of bitters, if desired.
Garnish with a lemon twist or olives.
Clean Up and then drink(S3)
Remember the Recipe and Preparation (S4)
Friday Cocktails (S5)
How do we Set In Order?
• Arrange needed items so that they are easy to locate & use.
• Label items so that anyone can find them and/or put them away.
• Arrange purchases such as shadow boards to enable the above.
• Purchase the correct tools and equipment
Why do we Set In Order?
• To eliminate many kinds of waste, including:
• Searching waste.
• Waste due to difficulty in finding items.
• Waste due to difficulty in using items.
• Waste due to difficulty in returning items.
We Set In Order to avoid.
• Motion waste.
• Searching waste.
• Waste of human energy.
• Waste of excess inventory.
• Waste found by defective products.
• Waste found in unsafe conditions
S3 - Shine
There are many business owners, Chief Executives Officers and General Managers who when they first read, hear or are told about 5S, concentrate on S3, Shine. They feel that all the problems that they see in the production facility will be solved by having a Spring clean. I am a real big fan of having a very clean work place wherever you work. However, as we have discovered we can make the Shine process easier to complete in this step and then easier to maintain on an ongoing basis because it must be maintained, in fact, we will do better than maintain the cleanliness achieved through Shine, we will adopt Continuous Improvement and get better at keeping a work place available that will give everyone a better feeling to work their best by taking pride in their work place. It will not be a chore in itself just getting to work each day.
Now, let’s get the 5S Implementation Committee back together to get S3 Shine organised and up and running.
If you do not have one of your cleaners on the Committee now is the time to remedy that situation. If you have a large facility with a number of cleaners from different areas contained in the total area of the facility, maybe consider more than one cleaner for the committee. They will offer some brainstorming ideas that no-one else will come up with. It will also have the added bonus to your company of giving these people a kick to their self esteem as many would never had had a boss speak to them before or more importantly, them talk to a boss. Give them the opportunity to have their ideas heard and possibly implemented.
One area that you must enquire of the cleaners is if they have the best equipment available to them. Do not be parsimonious when it comes to keeping your operations at their shiniest.
Now your committee convenes for another brain storming session. The aim of this brain storming session is to discover the ultimate methods to be put in place to carry out our initial Shine project and then to maintain the work place showing its excellence when it comes to cleanliness. As stated earlier, do not skimp on the required materials for achieving the required level of cleanliness.
Maintaining the newly acquired cleanliness is vital.
The committee should be looking at putting together the “Shine” calendar and be aware that different areas of your business will require different calendars. You do not need to have “clean the drilling machine” on your calendar for an office!
Consider what needs to be done on a,
• Daily basis
• Weekly basis
• Monthly basis
• Annual basis
Will the committee need to consider other time periods?
When the committee has the calendars almost finalised (Continuous Improvement) further expand on them with Standard Operating Procedures, spell out as much as you can with the S.O.P.’s but try to prepare these with the audience that will use them in mind. An example here is that I recommend that you don’t start quoting KPI’s and similar business jargon to your cleaners.
Don’t forget to include cleaning all the machinery. Go hard with the machinery that uses oil and hydraulics. The first sign that these machines need to be serviced or have other immediate repair carried out will be oil or another substances on the machine. This is a sign that cannot be seen if the machines are covered in months or years of grease, dust and other grime. Then you will not know the machine needs repair until it stops working, causing downtime at the least or the more expensive option of needing new, expensive equipment. Thoses hoses and hose clamps need to be kept in good working order and clean.
When the committee has come to a consensus, implement your plan.
Someone get this person organised.
Tip!
CLEAN AS YOU COOK
When I was young lad and living at 222, my Mum taught me a valuable lesson which helped me later in early adulthood and even more so when preparing to help others in implementing 5S. That lesson was “Clean as you Cook”.
Back then, I begrudgingly followed her rule without knowing the impact it would have on me and in turn others later in life. “Use it, clean and put it away” was the rule, keep it mind in everything you do.
In this lesson “Clean as you Cook” is at the core of the Third “S” is the “5 S’s”.
This “S”, Shine is about building the habit and discipline to keep your area clean and organized throughout the entire work day.
The hardest part of this “S” is the discipline.
How do we Shine?
We keep everything, every day, swept, brushed and clean
Why do we Shine?
We Shine to turn the work place into a clean, bright place where everyone will enjoy working
To keep everything in a condition so it is ready to be used when required
We Shine to avoid
A lack of sunshine and fresh air that can lead to a lack of morale and inefficient work practices
Hidden and hard to detect defects
A dangerous work place caused by lack of cleaning with health and safety hazards in large numbers
Our machines, tools and equipment not receiving the maintenance and attention they need to operate at their capacity. Machines not receiving maintenance, break down, causing more defects and production down time.
S4 - Standardise
Do you recognise the signs, symbols and logos below?
You should, the above are internationally recognised symbols, recognised by people wherever they were born, whatever language they speak or from whatever type of upbringing they have been blessed or not blessed with. The middle symbol is recognised even before the company enters some countries. I remember owning a tee shirt emblazoned with the logo and the words “I got to Vietnam before McDonald's”.
Some other international standards that make life easier for all are braille, the International Maritime Signal Flags, A4 (and other) paper sizes and the Hazard symbol. See it, know what is means and use it all of the time.
Companies all over the world strive to be granted certification from the International Organisation for Standards which strangely for an organisation all about standards has the acronym ISO. If we strive to recognise an international standard we should also strive to develop, implement and maintain our own company standards and our ownpersonal standards.
The importance of standards have been known for a long time with the following quote being one of the pieces of knowledge I attempt to have everyone in an organisation understand,
“We cannot have islands of excellence in a sea of slovenly indifference to standards”
These standards that we are about to establish should ensure that the work we have performed by implementing the the three steps of the 5S methodology are repeated (and repeated) again and again as well as being improved upon by staying alert to Continuous Improvement.
Our committee will reconvene and
Develop a system whereas the good things we are doing become part of everyone’s daily routine
Develop a system whereas those who have responsibilities as a result of the first three “S’s” know these responsibilities and which S they represent.
Develop a work process structure that will hold up and help carry the new routines.
Develop a record of visual controls to assist in maintaining the first three “S’s”.
Develop a 5S audit checklist
Now is also a good time to call back every employee and give an update to them all.
The committee chair will highlight the exceptional people involved in the process and the gains made by the process.
There will be local, State, National and International standards that you will be bound to follow but don’t think for a minute that your company standards will make your workers feel over regulated and controlled by red tape. We are in the main talking about visual standards so that we can have a work place where every person can be an auditor, our standards can be easily seen and everybody will (should, encourage this) want to highlight any errors, so that a work place, that is a pleasant place to work in, can be maintained and improved upon.
Look at the simple things that can be the first to be standardised. Can any governmental standards imposed upon us give us any clues to what we can look at implementing?
Again I emphasise, ask everybody in your organisation.
S5 - Sustain
As we have stated, having an organised work place such as we have demonstrated here, can “Quality Control” our work place. Furthermore, we have empowered every worker and every Manager from Owners and CEO’s down to observe the work place continually, soak in the improvements but also be the most important person the the room, our work place 5S Quality Controller. This is how we Sustain.
This is another important focus for your 5S Committee. The committee must, as a group, but also as individuals must ensure that all employee’s are comfortable in their new role of 5S Quality Controller. They must be comfortable to report where and when tools and equipment are missing or processes are not flowing as anticipated as only when we know what to replace or what to fix can we replace them or fix them.
These missing tools or processes that are not working as expected are Continuous Improvement and Continuous Improvement is what we are seeking. In my opinion no part of the 5S methodology should be treated as hard and fast rules and if and when you commence 5S Audits, no person or group of people should be penalised or “marked down” for either reporting a disappointing outcome from them or not being able to act on their own to fix the disappointing aspect of their work area. Let everyone be comfortable in the ability to be the 5S Quality Controller and make reports to a person they feel comfortable reporting to.
Your 5S committee should be looking at the reports and taking the appropriate action.
One of the best ways to sustain the implementation of 5S is to bring some enjoyment to it. Split the areas up and a League Table where points are allotted for Continuous Improvement, bringing problems together with suggested solutions to the attention of the 5S Committee or suggestions of any kind that are well thought out. Keeping everyone involved will be a key to sustaining 5S.