The 5s Program: A Smart Move for Any Business

The Five S program focuses on having visual order, organization, cleanliness and standardization. The results you can expect from a Five S program are: improved profitability, efficiency, service and safety.
The principles underlying a Five S program at first appear to be simple, obvious common sense. And they are. But until the advent of Five S programs many businesses ignored these basic principles.

What types of businesses benefit from a Five S program?
Everyone and all types of business benefit from having a Five S program.
Manufacturing and industrial plants come to mind first, as those are the business that can realize the greatest benefits. However, any type of business, from a retail store to a power plant -- from hospitals to television stations -- all types of businesses, and all areas within a business, will realize benefits from implementing a Five S program.

Benefits of Lean 5S"
One important purpose and benefit of 5 or 6S is to make your work area clean and in order to unhide potential problems. In an unclean workplace, it is hard to even notice things like "When did that machine start making that noise?" or "When did that start leaking oil?"
Another purpose and benefit is to reduce the amount of time wasted looking for misplaced tools, and materials, and supplies.
Most Lean initiatives start out with 5S training as one of the earliest initiatives, and there is a flurry of enthusiastic cleaning and organizing. The real test, however, is how well the new ways "stick" over time. The success of your 5s program is often an excellent predictor of the probable success of your greater lean manufacturing initiative.

The 5S's

• Sort: The 5S workplace organization process usually starts out by sorting the useful from the unnecessary. The only things that should remain in a work area are the parts, tools, & instructions needed to do the job.
• Straighten: Everything has a place; everything is in its place. This is also a good time for your team to create a Visual Scoreboard, Jidoka lights, floor paint, kanbans, and other visual controls.
• Sweep: Do an initial spring cleaning. Maybe painting, scouring, sweeping, washing, rinsing, scrubbing, and whatever else is needed to make your work place shine.
• Standardize: n the Standardize phase of Lean 5 S, routine cleaning becomes a way of life. Preventative maintenance is routinely performed, perhaps with planning and scheduling and some responsibilities done by your central maintenance department, and as much routine maintenance as possible performed by the people that know that work center better than anyone else.
• Sustain: Sustain is when five S becomes a routine way of life. Root causes are routinely identified and dealt with. The Systems2win 5 S forms and the Standard Work Audit are very familiar to everyone - both supervisors and the workers that have come to appreciate the benefits of Five S and Lean methods.

How to get started"
The essential thing is to have the workers evaluate every tool and machine, every pile of materials and supplies, every piece of instructional paper... to decide what is actually used, and how often.

• This can be done by marking any suspect items with a red tag, and then moving it out of the area into a temporary holding area (just in case it really is needed)...
  
• It can be accomplished by holding a mock auction - where the workers "bid" to plea their case for why an item should be kept.

The end result is to Sort the useful from the clutter.
Depending on the volume and complexity of the initial clutter - Sort can be its own phase, or you might have time to move right into an initial round of Straighten and Shine.
Be sure to take before and after photos - and distribute your highly visual success story far and wide to begin generating enthusiasm for your Lean program.