5's as part of 6sigma

8/3/2019 5's as part of 6sigma

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5S as an integralpart of Six Sigma

WHITE PAPER


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5S as an integral part of Six Sigma

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Is There a Payoff or

is This Just Another

Boondoggle?

By Ron Crabtree, CPIM, CIRM

AbstractBased on the Japanese words Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu and Shitsuke, the 5S

philosophy focuses on eective workplace organization and standardized work

procedures. 5S simplies your work environment, reduces waste and non-value

activity while improving quality eciency and safety.

Once fully implemented, the 5S process can increase morale, create positive

impressions on customers, and increase eciency and organization. Not only will

employees feel beer about where they work, but the continuous improvement of

5S leads to less waste, beer quality and faster lead times.

IntroductionAer suggesting 5S as an initial step in business transformation, I oen get

questions such as, Why should we care about 5S? or Well, thats nice, but

why take the time to ask everyone to do 5S and then actually audit each other for

compliance to make it part of our culture? and What, exactly, is the PAYOFF for

doing this?

This white paper will explain 5S, how it is implemented and how it pays o in

easy-to-follow terms. Well also cover what you can expect your learning curve to

be and the importance of celebrating success.

Villanova University | World Leader in Online Education

Copyright 2006 Villanova University & Ron Crabtree | All rights reserved | www.VillanovaU.com


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What is 5S?5S is the methodology based on ve Japanese terms to create a workplace suited

for visual control and lean production. Table 1.0 displays a concise description of

each of the 5Ss:

Step Name Translation Description

S1 Seiri Sort Separate needed items from

unneeded ones and remove the

laer.

S2 Seiton Simplify Neatly arrange items for use.

S3 Seiso Scrub Clean up the work area

S4 Seiketsu Standardize Sort, simplify and scrub daily.

S5 Shitsuke Sustain Always follow the rst four Ss

5S is

One tool that supports the principle of waste elimination by organizing

the workplace

An integral part of the Lean process

The dierence between ordinary and extraordinary companies

While simple in concept, 5S takes dedication and hard work to really happen.

How is 5S Implemented?

While every company is dierent, generally if every employee contributes about 40hours over the rst year to help implement and make 5S a habit success will soon

follow. This includes initial training and implementation, team meetings to work

out details, ongoing improvement implementation, auditing, and time to stop and

celebrate at key achievement points.

If 40 hours seems like a lot of eort, consider the next section below before passing

nal judgment.


The 5S framework was originally devel-

oped by just-in-time expert Hiroyuki Hi-

rano. According to Hirano, without the

organization and discipline provided by

successfully implementing the 5Ss, other

tools and methods are likely to fail.



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How Does 5S Pay Off?Lack of organization creates waste that is not always visible in our processes. Take

a look at Figure 1.0. In this photo you can see a rack containing the forms and

yers common in most HR departments. What is wrong in this picture?

How many people do you suppose need to come here several times a year to

retrieve one or more of these documents? Everyone? In your company, what are

the chances you will end up asking someone nearby for help to nd what you

need, only to discover it was already there? Likely, more oen than we would care

to admit! Now we have tied up two people for up to 15 minutes or the employee

may even have to come back later.

Let us assume 600 employees need to go to this rack from time to time, and say on

average, everyone does this about three times a year. That is 1,800 visits. If each

person takes 15 minutes to look through the rack, it comes to 450 hours of search

time, when, if 5Sd it could easily be a minute or less per visit or 1,800 minutes a

year, or just 30 hours. That is a possible productivity increase of about 93% on this

task alone. Now, let us assume there are 600 dierent locations in the company

that deal with this kind of problem every day . . . and, well . . . you do the math.

This is a perfect example of how the 5S approach can save a company many lost

hours of productivity. Using just this example, hidden waste is reduced by more

than 400 hours a year!


Figure 1.0 - Human Resources Forms for Employees

5S not only streamlines manufacturing,

but its eective in service organiza-

tions, too. Six Sigma programs like those

oered through Villanova University

online can pay for themselves in the time

and money youll save hunting for neces-

sary supplies, tools, les and equipment.



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Table 2.0 - Productivity Increase with 5S Implementation

Present Situation Afer Implementing 5S Increase in

ProductivityVisits Time Spent

Each Visit

Total Time

for 600

Employees

Visits Time Spent

Each Visit

Total Time

for 600

Employees

93%1,800 15 minutes 450 hours 1,800 1 minute 30 hours

Properly scaled and applied, 5S can make a tremendous dierence in the ability

to execute quickly, with beer quality, and at a lower cost. If you have read even

one book on time management, you know that time is a precious commodity that

can never be recovered. By being selective about what we spend our time on and

prioritizing, we can become much more eective in our outcomes and results. 5S

is a structured approach that teaches us how to apply excellent time managementskills to workplace organization and cleanliness.

A natural extension of making 5S a part of your culture ultimately involves

everyone learning beer personal time management skills. That is a completely

separate story, but let me say this: Never accept your current state as good enough!

There are companies out there right now working diligently to take your business

away by being beer than you are. If you do your part to embrace continuous

improvement, together we can be the them the ones who always win, the best at

what we do.

5S Saves Time and MoneyAlright, you might be thinking, but how does saving time really make a

dierence? Consider that if your 5S implementation does not have the ultimate

objective of converting saved time into beer customer satisfaction and boom line

results, you are losing potential earnings and prots! Recently I had the privilege

of assisting a large nonprot medical and retirement benets provider to become

more eective at delivering high levels of customer satisfaction and quality. The

company has chosen NOT to use the word Lean, but rather is calling the initiative

Customer Service First. The union and management team have united around two

specic measured outcomes: Increase customer satisfaction by 50% and quality by

50% by the end of 2006.

Assigning more people to solve our problems is not always an option. This is

where 5S helps to improve the boom line. If we build a culture that consciously

converts time saved into higher customer satisfaction and improved quality,

we can convert wasted time into more value-added time for our customers.

Remember, without satised customers, we ultimately do not have a business!


5S not only helps to ensure that time

will be spent doing more productive

activities, but it also reduces the chance

of error, rework and injury, saving time

and money.



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Case Study #1: Time = Money = Higher Proftability!A few years back I was involved with Lean implementation work at a well

managed, $10 million printing company. This companys steering commiee was

very eective and the top managers supported the 5S plan, including rigorousauditing. Remember, this was a class act company long before I met them. They

were already cleaner than most print shops. They practice a prot sharing program

which provides an incentive for all employees to share in the companys growth

and prots. Everyone is extremely conscious of what time is spent on, because in a

real way, every employees paycheck is aected by poor use of time. By beginning

to implement 5S, this company quickly realized improvement.

The president conded to me the last scal year they enjoyed a nearly 20% boost in

company-wide productivity and prot sharing. She explained it like this: Ron,

I know we did not make many of the changes that you wanted us to, but we did

use 5S to communicate beer visually in the workplace. Thats the only dierencefor us that has been implemented since last year. That said, last year we had higher

sales in December than this year and lost money. With lower sales this year, we

MADE money.

Case Study #2: 5S Improves Customer Service,Increases Delivery Speed and Improves Quality in AllBusiness ProcessesApplying 5S in production areas is easy to justify and to see a dramatic dierence

quickly. In oce and service processes, it is much more dicult to measure the

dierence. Think about a call center where for the most part work is performed

independently and in an electronic seing. What are the 5S benets to look for?

The key here is to get folks thinking about what customers care about and then

nding creative ways to provide those things. In the nonprot insurance and

retirement benets company I mentioned earlier, what customers want is prey

basic: Pay my claims correctly and quickly, and if I have a question, dont make

me wait, and always answer my questions correctly the rst time.

One of the logical extensions of 5S, is What tools are needed to do the job? and

Make it easy to nd or put tools away in 30 seconds or less. If we are working in

a call center answering questions, what serves our customer beer: making them

wait while we hunt for the information, or even worse, telling them someone will

call them back later? How would our customers feel if we were able to swily

handle at least 80% of the requests in bench-marked time and near-perfect quality?

Well, I think we all can agree that that this is the right kind of goal to set for

customer service, since that is how we would like to be treated when we need help


Apply 5S to oce procedures for in-

creased savings and improved customer

service, eliminating unnecessary steps

from administrative functions.



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Think about our workspace and the systems we use to serve our customers. Since

it is unlikely that one person can know everything to handle any possible call,

we need to focus on the 80% of the call volumes that represent 20% of the needed

answers. Knowing all the vitals for these vital repeat questions is critical. What

we need to do is make sure we have changed our workspaces, reference materialsand systems to uniformly handle these requests rst, then work on the other 80%

of questions that represent only 20% of the call volume. This means our working

materials and systems must be error-proofed and the work seing is made as

visual as possible.

There are two main reasons to accomplish this: you cannot remember everything,

and humans operate most eectively when there is uniformity. If a common

incoming question has more than two possible answers, it is a clear signal that our

process will have defective results. Since call center work is by denition fraught

with misunderstandings and errors, why wouldnt we be willing to do whatever it

takes to get it right the rst time? The time spent to develop visuals on the systemand how-to guides (as part of the bigger 5S strategy) makes perfect sense.

Not only can an eective 5S strategy be very helpful in increasing customer service

and quality, it also enables increased exibility for our workforce. If we have error

proofed and made more than 80% of the work in the call center visual, we can now

adjust our resources more quickly. Utilizing temporary helpers or visitors from

another department or area will be more eective in handling routine call center

workload uctuation quickly and awlessly. Now it is possible to have a team

approach where experts can help screen incoming calls and route less complicated

calls to those who can handle them, with the less frequent, but more problematic

requests being handled by the experts.

This challenges the traditional thinking in call center management around

measuring and driving calls-per-person-per-hour. Clearly, all incoming calls are

not equal, so our system must adapt to recognize that call volumes will uctuate. I

believe that it is possible to improve call center speed and quality by 50% or more

while holding the line on resources. However, this can only be accomplished if

there is a dedicated eort to work as a team to awlessly execute and leverage the

tools at our disposal, such as 5S. The printing company I mentioned earlier has a

very active call center where sales people call customers and take calls to process

orders for new print jobs. The call center experienced many problems including

long wait times, inaccurate handling of questions, long delays to hand-o people

on hold with questions, and many mistakes in order instructions that resulted in

reprints (rework). In fact, the number one prot drain on the company at the start

of the process was reprints due to oce-generated errors in taking orders.

By aggressively applying a 5S team approach, they created visual training aids,

introduced visual error-proong measures, restructured who does what


The intent of 5S is to eliminate defects,

trim waste, reduce delays, incur fewer

injuries, and decrease breakdowns.

These outcomes translate to lower cost

and higher quality.



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(for example, re-introducing order entry experts instead of expecting sales people

to do data entry), and aggressively measured performance improvement . Happily,

this company now reports a 50% reduction in reprints overall and customer

satisfaction has never been higher. So, without additional sta resources they have

steadily increased their output in this area of the company.

5S Implementation Phases and Time Horizon HowMuch 5S is Enough?Another frequent question I hear is, How long will we be doing 5S, and when will

we be done? Let me walk you through a typical implementation horizon, help

you understand how the auditing process works, and discuss how you can tell if

you are done with 5S.

The 5S steps and typical horizon I have seen in average companies follows: S1

Sort, S2, Set in Order - (Straighten), S3 Scrub, S4 Standardize, and S5 Sustain

(by scheduling audits to provide evidence of continuous improvement).

Kicking Off Initiating S1First we communicate with everyone and describe 5S and share our desire to roll

it out. S1 starts with initial training to get through the rst three of the steps. S1

Sorting work usually involves seing up some red-tag parking lots to hold

items for scheduled disposition. Initial cleaning can be done at the same time as

sorting. For the average company, S1 sorting starts on day one and continues for 3

to 6 months to complete in all areas.

Moving on to S2 and S3

Before making a place for everything and puing everything in its place you needto locate everything or have everything you need on hand. This is a subtle point.

Aer initial sorting to remove unneeded items, sometimes it is possible to jump to

S2 and S3 without rst properly identifying and accounting for the needed missing

items. This makes a good case for a team eort; it is hard for one person to think of

everything that should be there. Only aer you have a complete inventory of what

is needed, can you nish S2 and S3 and begin the S4 step (Standardizing).

Standardizing is the step where we make everything look like a showcase,

everything has a clearly identiable home. Once this step is completed, it is

easy to see how much is needed, and a system is in place to maintain supply

visual storage techniques are in place that meet or beat the 30 second rule: If

you cant nd it or put it away in 30 seconds, you are not done with 5S. I take it

one step further in oce situations where we need to nd items when someone is

unavailable. If anyone cant nd it in your workspace in 30 seconds or less, you are

not done with 5S. This makes a strong case for groups of people (who do similar

work) to standardize their workspaces together (this contributes to increased

customer satisfaction immediately). When working as a team, we sometimes need


The most common mistake companies

make when implementing 5S is the

failure to train adequately at the outset.

Upper management and other mem-

bers of the steering group must have 5S

training like that provided in Villanova

Universitys Six Sigma programs.



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to ex our resources to meet customer demand, and standardized workspaces

enhance the groups ability to support customers. How does this aect the

customer? Here is a list of potential benets of 5S for customers of companies who

decide to implement the program:

Customers spend less time waiting for an answer to a question because

information is easy to nd now that it is properly organized

A customer does not have to talk to the same person every time he or she calls

because there is uniformity in the department and another team member can

serve them almost as well

The customer will not hesitate to call back because of previous excellent results,

which mean beer overall satisfaction

Customers do not feel that they are being rushed because employees have more

time to devote to customer issues as a result of less time being wasted elsewhere

Fewer hand-os (referring a caller to another person because we cannot quickly

and correctly answer the question) are required because more of us can handlethe call the rst time this can be a huge factor that increases customer

satisfaction

Aer standardizing your work and making 5S a habit, you are not done. The old

maxim is true if you do the same thing over and over but expect dierent results,

you are on the verge of insanity. The corollary is true, too. If you want consistent,

high quality, fast results for your customers, everyone must agree to do it the same

way. If you expect this to happen without reaching consensus on the one best

method, then you are also practicing a form of insanity, right?

Completion of S3 is signaled when the area is uniform and visual, surfaces aregood as new in appearance, appropriate lighting and equipment is in place,

and we can now take our aer photos demonstrating the minimally acceptable

standard for auditing the area. S2 and S3 start almost immediately aer S1 is

underway and may continue for 5 to 8 months as we make our way through all

areas.

Kicking Off the Scheduling of Audits S5 - SustainOnce your teams have photo-ready spaces, it is time to establish the S5 Sustain

This includes creating and using cleaning checklists and requires everyones

participation for ongoing maintenance. The trick with scheduling is to provide

adequate time on a frequency that keeps the subject area clean while the task

is very small. This ensures that it gets done, and is not rationalized away if

something else comes up. In the S3 step, implement measures to make it easy

to keep the area clean. For example wires are neatly bundled and o the oor,

desktops are cleared so that dusting and sweeping is easy, and displayed items

are easy to remove and put back exactly as intended. This makes it possible for

members of a team to help one other so that we are ALL done at the same time,


The last S, sustain, requires that the 5S

program becomes both a discipline and

a set of shared values. Without employee

buy-in, it is impossible to maintain con-

sistent standards of quality, safety, clean

production, and process operation.



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and can easily arrange rotating cleaning assignments.

A couple of subtleties oen missed in seing up cleaning schedules include

dening How clean is clean? and providing suciently detailed instructions so

that anyone on the team can properly perform the cleaning or maintenance.

NOTE: This is also a great time to incorporate your total productive maintenance

strategy into your checklists. For example, changing air lters, cleaning out copier

cabinets, and backing up critical les can all be added as part of the 5S cleaning

checklist strategy. This makes sense if these things are neglected, they can break

down unexpectedly causing us to ignore our all-important customers while we

scramble to x them.

S5 Sustain starts aer areas have completed S3 and S4 and continues for 6 to 9

months as we make our way through all areas.

S5 auditing can start at any time, but as a practical maer, we usually do not start

formal audits until most areas have made good progress usually aer 3 or 4

months. Auditing is the most challenging part of implementing 5S. At rst, it is

hard to understand what the standards should be. Then, it is geing over the fear

and hurt feelings that someone is looking critically at your work space aer all,

during the week most of us spend more time at work than any other place!

Later, it is oen dicult to give clear feedback to areas audited on what to do next.

What is amazing to me is that time aer time when I do initial audits my scores are

fundamentally in agreement with what the team sees. Assigning a numerical score

from a 1 to 5 (1 = no evidence of 5S to 5 = perfection) is rarely a big problem. Thechallenge is in guring out what needs to be dierent and how to proactively

and professionally share this feedback with the areas audited. Aer two or three

successive audits in all areas have been completed with aggregated numeric result

posted (hopefully showing steady progress), you are probably beginning to master

the process. Aer each audit, the score is posted and graphed for team reference.

What Implementation Curve Should I Expect BeforeAchieving Success?Assuming you are doing the auditing on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 = perfection, the

easiest way to visualize your implementation curve is in a graph over a one-year

period. Imagine we are auditing every area and rolling up our aggregated score

on 5S to a company or location-wide measure. When audits start we are usually

already running at about a 2.0 on our scale of 1 to 5. Like most things, the eort

and focus required to move up the point scale is relatively easy at rst. As we get

into more dicult and time-consuming tasks, such as repairing broken items,

installing beer organization systems, and puing visual standardized work in

place, the rate of improvement slows down. In addition, as we move further along


People should be motivated to par-

ticipate in 5S implementation through

coaching and team participation, not by

orders and penalties. The best way to

get them on board is through Six Sigma

Green Belt training like that provided

through Villanova University online.



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the spectrum, it takes more focus and progressively more critical judgment.

Geing to a 5 overall in my mind is like going for zero defects; we are emotionally

commied to it, but may not get there in our lifetime. Therefore, I suggest that if

your company can achieve between a 4.0 or 4.5 ranking in all areas over the rstyear of auditing, you have been very successful. In the graph below is the typical

progress in scores I might expect to see over the rst year:

What is the Best Time Frame and Frequencyfor Auditing?Since adopting 5S is all about adapting new habits and standards, I recommend

that you start the audit process with frequent reviews and reduce the frequencyas the average scores improve. This is dierent in every company and is a maer

of personal choice; however, I suggest you start by planning to the schedule

displayed in Figure 3.0.


Figure 2.0 - Typical Score Achievement Curve -One Year after S5 Begins

Figure 3.0 - Audit Frequency Based on Audit Score

5S is best implemented very gradually

over time. Because implementing 5S can

be such an overwhelming task, some

companies decide to institute it depart-

ment-by-department.



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The point of the whole eort is to use the audits to help the team continually

improve and perfect their implementation. My experience has been that aer a

4.5 or beer has been achieved, 5S is becoming a habit. Now that 5S is a habit,

the intensity of audits becomes more of a surveillance audit, much like that to

maintain an ISO registration, except a third party is not required to perform theaudits. It is a good idea during and aer 5S implementation to benchmark your

progress by visiting other companies who have adopted this method of workplace

organization to see and learn about new techniques that are being used.

Do Not Forget to Celebrate Your Success!The biggest mistake you can make in 5S is to forget about celebrating success each

step of the way! Im not a believer in monetary rewards or unfavorably comparing

one area to another. If we do a big hoopla and monetary reward only for the rst

area that hits a milestone, say hiing a 4.0, how does this aect all the other areas

that have also worked hard? It makes them feel like they dont deserve recognition

only the rst group does. Dont get caught up in this trap.

I suggest deciding on some recognition and celebration that takes place when all

areas reach a minimum threshold of implementation. For example, I suggest the

following scenario:

When the rst area achieves a 3.0 there is a small sign or award to signify the

achievement on a teams communication board, and it is reported in the company

newsleer. When ALL areas hit the 3.0 level or beer there is special recognition in

the next all-hands meeting. Maybe everyones name goes into a rae for some gi

certicates or other gi items.

Then, up the ante with a celebration point of 4.0 or beer in all areas audited. This

one is a big deal, with a special all-hands event just to celebrate the achievement.

Have each area share their best before and aer picture story. Everyone gets a

shopping or dining gi certicate in a nominal amount and the next objective, a 4.5

audit score, is discussed. Depending on your culture, hiing a 4.5 audit score can

include another round of nicer gi certicates and perhaps a rae for something

really nice, like a large plasma TV.

A celebration system is set up so that we all win together by achieving our goals.

Aer making 5S a habit, we need to channel our energies to other things that bring

value to our customers and improve our competitiveness. Semi-annual audits and

reporting helps to keep you honest, and will help you know together if it is time to

reemphasize 5S.


People want to feel appreciated. When

your employees hit a milestone, recog-

nize their achievement. When you re-

ward your workers, they perform beer.



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SummaryThe master on 5S is Hiroyuki Hirano. His book, Pillars of the Visual Workplace, is

considered by many to be the 5S bible.

To recap, here are key takeaways:

1. 5S is a relatively simple methodology that is hygienic in nature a solid

foundation of discipline and organization upon which to build a world-class

enterprise.

2. Initially 5S requires a signicant investment of time. Aer startup the incre

mental time saved more than compensates for the time spent to maintain 5S

every day.

3. Properly implemented 5S will have a measurable impact on organizational

performance in:

Improved quality

Increase in available workspace

Improved employee morale

Increased customer satisfaction

Increased boom line

4. 5S is uniformly implemented everywhere in the business including shared

oce process areas!

5. 5S ties nicely to a visual workplace and error-proong strategies that

simplify training and job rotation eorts. It does not stop there. In addition,

I always strongly recommend integrating the 5S mentality with a Total

Productive Maintenance, or Autonomous Maintenance Program. Cleaning

is a form of inspection, and inspection leads to early detection. Why not have

every one involved with keeping things working right?

6. Implementation of 5S follows logical stages, progressing from S1 though S5,

though the phases may overlap signicantly. Starting from a zero state,

most companies allow about a full year of focus to make it a habit and be

able to scale back surveillance audits.




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7. Celebrating 5S success throughout the process is very important. If

rewards or incentives will be given, these must be on the basis that everyone

celebrates and participates in success together because all parts of the

organization have achieved a shared target. Seing up individual area

rewards is dangerous, as it pits groups against one another and destroys ateam approach to enterprise-wide commitment to excellence.

Ron Crabtree, CPIM, CIRM

Adjunct Faulty for Lean, Six Sigma and Business Analysis

Villanova University Online




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5's as part of 6sigma

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