5S and Lean by Walter McIntyre

The 5S tools are associated with Lean thinking. The objective of Lean thinking is to provide a business with long-term profitability by developing a more effective workplace, which is accomplished by eliminating waste in the work environment. The result is a safer workplace, improved product quality, and lower costs for both the business and its customers.

Lean thinking may result in a reduction in work force, but that is not its purpose. In fact, the application of lean thinking for the purpose of reducing the work force is not lean thinking at all. Since some companies have done this, lean thinking has been given a bad reputation and has made waste reduction efforts more difficult.

The 5S approach involves five activities in the workplace: scrapping, sorting, scrubbing, standardizing, and sustaining. Depending upon which book you read, there may be different names for each S, but the intent is the same.

Scrapping means to throw away unneeded material. A trashy work environment, in addition to being unsafe, tends to create a casual attitude toward quality. There should be a strategy for knowing what to keep and what to throw away. Take junk mail for example. It should only be handled once. Look at it, decide to use it or throw it away, and then take the appropriate action. When junk mail is handled more than once, it piles up on your desk making normal productive work more difficult. The same thing happens in a shop with trash and old parts, and in a store with boxes and packing material.

Sorting is the process of placing everything where it belongs. Imagine a toolbox where the drill bits are scattered throughout. If a bit is needed, it will take some time to find the bit. This adds time and cost to work. Now imagine a toolbox with the drill bits organized in a labeled drawer and separated logically by size. The time necessary to find the needed bit and get the job done is shortened, and the cost of the work is reduced.

Scrubbing the work environment involves cleaning the work area. A clean work area is safer than a dirty one and is conducive to higher quality work. It is related to discarding scrap but goes further by including the cleaning up of what is left. Consider a machine shop where cutting oil is left on the floor. This becomes a slipping hazard and indicates sloppiness. If you were inspecting machine shops to see which one to hire, what would you think about the shop with an oil mess on the floor?

Another example of the importance of scrubbing is preventative maintenance. In a manufacturing facility, for example, the machining equipment can be painted white and wiped down each shift with white cloths. It becomes easy to see any unusual oil leaks or dirt. This allows the factory workers to diagnose machine problems before breakdowns occur. The result is reduced cost.

Standardization is about making sure that important elements of a process are performed consistently and in the safest and best possible way. Lack of consistency will cause a process to generate defects and compromise safety. The standardization of work practices increases predictability. Predictability, in turn, allows the process owners and operators to prevent problems before they affect the customer.

Sustain means to maintain the gains. The 5-S philosophy will only work when all levels of the business are engaged.  Instead of a program, it becomes part of the culture.  Lean thinking is natural and automatic, instead of an add on in our business’s paradigm.

I coached high school basketball for 4 years.  A significant learning from this experience was the importance of the basics, or the fundamentals.  We won a lot of games because we rebounded better, passed better and had fewer turnovers than the other teams we played.  Every day in practice we worked on the fundamentals of blocking out to improve our rebounding, the fundamentals of passing to get scoring opportunities, the fundamentals of  how to avoid dribbling so that we could overcome trapping defenses.  Because we did the little things right, the bigger things fell into place.

Manufacturing has the same relationship with fundamentals.  Focusing on how we do things will reveal fundamental opportunities.  The idea is to eliminate self-inflected waste. Remember that even though we face competition from competitors who have lower labor costs, our strength is in our innovation and smarts.

• How much time do you and your direct reports spend doing things that do not directly build or ship units?  By eliminating or reducing these activities we reduce cycle time and cost.  This is not about working harder, it’s about working smarter.
• Do you know what you need to produce today to be successful?  If you don’t, it’s like driving with your eyes closed.  You are unlikely to reach your desired destination.
• Have you ever been faced with dirt, waste, or ill prepared tools that you yourself left in the way rather than deal with at the time?  It is one thing to be angry because someone else did this to you, but doing it to yourself…
• Failure to take responsibility.  Leaving a workspace in a less than desirable state for the next user.  I know that you don’t like it when it happens to you, so don’t do it to someone else.
• Are you satisfied with your efficiency and effectiveness?  Satisfied people do not improve and grow, and are soon left behind.  Do you want to be left behind?

Think on this.  Excellent execution on the basics and fundamentals will lead to excellent performance overall.  My father told me over and over again to never let anyone out work me, or produce better results than me.  That advice has served me well.  I offer it to you.