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Have You "Done 5S" Well?
By Kip Barker
Lean and its first building block “5S” have been around for many years. There are books, conferences, workshops, seminars, tapes and online learning tools that companies can access to “5S’ their facilities and processes on their way to Lean. And many companies have been there and “done” 5S!
You can usually see signs of it when you sit down in their offices and scan their bookshelves. You can see the mugs, the books, the tapes and all of the paraphernalia that “proves” that they have “already done” 5S. But the best way to really know if you have done 5S is to walk the floor.
Let’s take a look at the 5 S’s and run through a high level checklist using real client examples that we have found . . . some that you may find in your facility as well.
#1 and #2 - Sort and Set in Order: You might have more Sort or Set in Order work to do if . . .
. . . your people have to walk around a piece of equipment to do their job.
. . . there are workstations with bins that no one knows what the parts are for.
. . . materials and tooling that are used minimally are easier to get to than materials and tooling needed daily.
. . . your facility has a lot of full racking because “we need these parts, materials, etc. just in case we need it.”
. . . you look at a workstation and can’t tell if needed materials are missing or not.
. . . there are dusty tags on dusty skids of material that say something like, “Save for (insert your person’s name here), 5/22/04.”
#3 - Shine: You might have more Shine work to do if . . .
. . . you can’t read the “5S” banners in your plant because they are too dusty!
. . . the piles of inventory that you have in racks are covered in dust!
. . . clutter keeps your people from finding the tools and materials they need.
. . . employees have to clean product at every process step.
. . . you use compressed air to blow off everything to keep it clean!
#4 - Standardize: You might have more Standardize work to do if . . .
. . . your 1st shift team thinks your 2nd shift team doesn’t follow procedures
. . . your 2nd shift team thinks your 1st shift team doesn’t follow procedures.
. . . you can’t find the documented procedures that they are arguing about.
#5 - Sustain: You might have more Sustain work to do if . . .
. . . you were surprised to find issues as noted in the first four S’s above.
. . . you were not surprised to find issues as noted in the first four S’s above.
If you complete this walk-through checklist and find that you have many of these circumstances, you are probably not alone. Many companies look at “5S/Lean” as something you can “do” once and not have to worry about again, when in reality it should be part of an ongoing, continuous improvement focus.
Given that, you have an opportunity to save your company time and money by re-focusing on a 5S/Lean Continuous Improvement Process. There are at least two ways you can do this:
- Go back to the 5S/Lean books and tapes in your office, review what is needed, then energize your team to get involved and make change.
- Find a reputable set of fresh eyes (like Aptimise) to help you recognize opportunities, quantify potential benefits, develop and execute projects to gain the benefits of a solid 5S/Lean Continuous Improvement Process.
At one client that we have worked with, we found many 5S checklist issues that needed help, even though they had “done 5S” a couple years before. They were producing product in 150,000 square feet of space, flows were disjointed, materials and dust was everywhere, whether in racks or on skids stacked on the floor.
Through a concerted 5S/Lean effort over 9 months, they completely reconfigured their facility to eliminate the need for 75,000 square feet of space. Saving the space also saved them time, since the team spent less time overcoming the 5S issues that they had before. And of course, saving time saved them money and helped to increase productivity and flexibility.
Kip Barker is a skilled Lean/Six Sigma/Project Management professional with Aptimise. He can work with you and your team to find opportunities, to develop plans and to execute them, to save your company time and money.
