MAKING THE ‘5S’ APPROACH A STANDARD HOUSEKEEPING POLICY

5S: The basis of maintaining an effective, efficient workplace

As a matter of preference, most employees desire to work in a fresh, clean and well-functioning workplace.

A cluttered and filthy work area undoubtedly mirror the kind of attitude and mindset the workers, as well as the managers, have in giving importance to their jobs.

On the other hand, a clean and tidy environment reflects how the employees (and supervisors) care about their jobs and work hard with due concern and consideration. Therefore, these people are more inclined to do their jobs better and are more productive compared to those who work in a messy and disorganized work areas.

However, there are companies who refuse to acknowledge their part in keeping the workplace more people-friendly and instead put the blame on the perceived laziness of employees when it comes to housekeeping.

Well, I have gathered different views on housekeeping based on my experience as a 5S coach.

Whenever I conduct 5S trainings, I meet employees from all kinds of businesses. I would always pose a rhetorical question: “What would change if your workplace would be clean and in good order?”

The answers vary but what surprised me is that everyone shares a common desire: to have a clean and orderly work atmosphere.

“It would save a lot of time,” a staff commented.

“I would be less irritated at work”, said one.

According to another staff: “I think we would be prouder about our workplace.”

These are some typical comments coming from ordinary employees—and to my mind, it is clear that almost everyone wants the work facilities to be in good tip-top shape.

Messy workplaces and employees who want order

One explanation to this contradiction is: it is acceptable for most people to take care of their own trash, but few people like to take care of somebody else’s waste.

A shift worker would certainly not be pleased if, one day, he would find his workplace dirty and all messed up. The first time it happens, he might clean it up. The second time, probably he’ll ignore the mess and clean it up again anyway—but the next time he will not be that generous to lift a finger. Soon he will stop playing hero and say: “It seems like no one else cares about this place, so why should I?”

This means that the overall level of “housekeeping consciousness” will gradually deteriorate. If we do nothing, we will end up in a situation where the least interested employee will implicitly impose a poor sense of housekeeping standard for everybody else.

The way I see it, a cluttered and dirty workplace is not a worker’s choice; it is a result of a bad system where a few lazy people can tear down the very fabric of industry convenience and labor satisfaction for all the rest.

This is, of course, unacceptable.

The more disorganized and unkempt the company is, the more reason why we need discipline, policies, rules and systems to maintain consistent standards of quality and safety free from wastes, errors, defects and accidents.

With these scenarios, this is where the “5S” approach can be implemented and put into practice.

What is 5S?

5S refers to the five structured programs using the Japanese principles of seiri, seiton, seison, seiketsu, and shitsuke—or commonly referred to as sort, set, shine, standardize and sustain, respectively.

The Japanese words are shorthand expressions for principles of maintaining an efficient and effective workplace.

The 5S approach is promoted as a set of strategies, systems and techniques that provide a standard approach to housekeeping.

Although there are different anglicized versions of the Japanese words within the context of Lean Manufacturing, the 5S is collectively alluded to as the “Pillars of Good Housekeeping” for successful lean implementation.

It is likewise regarded as the “Basic of Kaizen” tool to begin, support and sustain the lean path to higher productivity and efficiency.

Involvement is the key for a successful ‘5S’ implementation

Even if most of your employees want to adopt the principles of 5S, active participation and total involvement in the program is the key to its successful implementation.

If you do it right, you will not just benefit from smooth-running business operations, but also having highly-motivated employees eager to continue on with the change process.

So how could 5S be effectively implemented?

Based on my experience, the following steps are the key treads that would best guarantee the successful 5S implementation:

1. Choose a department to start with. As 5S will use resources, you should begin somewhere where the payback time is shortest. Do it right so that you have a good example to set for the next. Duplicate. Replicate.

2. Conduct 5S training workshops. In a production plant, the training involves all production personnel, maintenance, managers and staff.

3. Treat seiri (sort/organization) as a ‘waste reduction’ activity. The goal is to release time for housekeeping and to make housekeeping as easy as possible. The best way to do this is to go out in the facility in cross-functional teams and search for everything that creates unnecessary effort. Sort out unnecessary objects; mark all known problems, find leakages, and remove hazards. Red-tag every problem and make an action plan that you carry out within 30 days.

4. Seiton is setting everything in order. Seiton focuses on arranging/fixing everything starting from the easiest and most efficient access. It is the efficient placement and arrangement of equipment and materials. In practice, you might integrate seiton in the action plan from seiri, or it could be a task for empowered work teams.

5. Seiso means shiny clean. Cleanliness is crucial for the acceptance of 5S. There are two goals with seiso: the first is to agree on what cleaning standard you mutually think is right. The second goal is to document what you need to do to get there. Just like seiri, everybody working in the area, including managers and staff, should perform the seiso activity. Split the area into small parts and appoint teams to take care of each. Let the teams note down what “spring cleaning job” they want to do, and ask them to estimate how often this cleaning should be repeated in the future. Finally, take a photo of the new standard. Remember that seiso is a one-time activity the next ‘S’s will keep up the new standard.

6. Seiketsu means standardized cleanup. If you fail here, all other steps are worthless. When you come to seiketsu, you will be happy if you have a good documentation of seiso. If so, you already know what the necessary housekeeping tasks are, and you have an estimation of their intervals. The good news is that the new habits are not something that you have invented. Instead, they were proposed and introduced by the people doing seiso. You just have to decide which system you will use to schedule the proposed activities.

7. Shitsuke is discipline and discipline should be sustained. Discipline is what will change the future. Even if your schedules are world class, it is useless if you do not follow them. Agree on a top management policy on cleaning. Place the photos from seiso on the walls; appoint people responsible for all systems that you introduced; and use audits to prevent the level to drop.

There you go—a plan to implement 5S involving your employees.

Be consistent, and you can expect impressive and long-term results.

Oskar Olofsson is a Sweden-based Management Consultant with more than 10 years experience in the fields of Total Productive Manufacturing (TPM) and Lean Manufacturing. Mr. Olofsson maintains and manages Resources for World Class Manufacturing (http://www.wcm.nu), a free Internet information resource site on matters relative to TPM and Lean Manufacturing implementation.