Posted 7:05 PM by Mark Graban
Personally, I think an executive's time could be better spent taking 20 minutes to walk a shop floor to focus attention on 5S, making sure audits are done, people are being trained, etc. on the shopfloor.

If you believe that the shopfloor is where value is created, then EVERYONE in the company should support the shopfloor (a lesson I learned from a NUMMI-trained plant manager). This includes top execs.

So, I would argue that the execs encouraging 5S "helps" the shopfloor, and therefore helps the company more, than "5S-ing" their executive cafeteria... unless nobody can find the Sweet N Low, that is. :-)

I think people doing 5S for the sake of 5S might set a good example, but might not be adding value to the company as much as encouraging it on the shopfloor.

Good discussion though Alison -- I see your point and respect your perspective on it...

Posted 9:39 PM by Mark Graban
I think 5S is more than just "cleaning up" as we would do with our bedroom or our desk. I saw a conference room last week that said "Please 5S the room when you're done" as if "5S" was a synonym for "pick up after your meeting." I think that's a common misperception that 5S means "pick up after yourself."

5S is a process that calls for things that aren't done every day:

The first step is "Sort" -- the equivalent of a spring cleaning, removing all of the un-needed things from the area in question.

Once you've "sorted" and defined places for everything, ala "a place for everything and everything in its place". Getting a team to agree on where things should go isn't always easy -- people like to do things their own way sometimes. But the reason we do this workplace organization is to reduce waste -- namely the waste involved in spending time looking for things, that or the waste involved in quality defects that occur because a gauge/tool is missing.

Only then you move on to the maintenance stages -- "things you should do everyday."

My other late night thought -- you don't do 5S for 5S's sake. It's to reduce waste and to improve people's job satisfaction by reducing frustration caused by things being lost and/or missing.

Cheers,

Mark

Posted 3:51 PM by Mark Graban
I think the more valuable concept, related to 5S, is "standardized work". In any role where there is a repeatable process, such as maintenance, engineering, procurement, sales -- standardized work is absolutely applicable and helpful. I think of 5S more in terms of team-based organization -- make sure everyone can find shared tools, etc. An employee misplacing information that only they use -- I'd call that more a case of a person being disorganized than it being a "5S" situation. The abuses of 5S I've seen include telling employees that they can't have family pictures or personal items on their desks, because it's "non-standard". That's the ridiculous type of extreme that I'm talking about.

I had to explain "standardized work" to a sales group once when we had three meetings in a row where there had been time zone confusion, confusion over which conference call line to use, etc. Suffering through that "waste", everyone suddenly valued the concept of standardized work for scheduling a meeting. We all agreed that there's no creativity required for scheduling a meeting.

Food for thought....

Posted 1:43 PM by Mark Graban
1. Mark Graban

2. Professional Services Senior Consultant, Factory Logic Inc. Founded in Austin, Texas in 1998, Factory Logic is the first company to team lean manufacturing specialists with experienced software professionals to develop a standard software product built around the principles of lean production. The result is Streamline - a comprehensive off the shelf Lean Factory Management System. Through the deployment of Streamline software and the guidance of experienced consultants, Factory Logic is helping a growing number of leading companies in the automotive, electronics, industrial equipment and aerospace industries move to the next level of performance on the Journey to Lean. In my role, I help implement Factory Logic's Streamline software and provide lean manufacturing and supply chain consulting services.

3. LFM Class of 1999.

4. In my first job out of college, I worked as an Industrial Engineer in a General Motors plant that was in early stages of a lean manufacturing transformation. I had shopfloor responsibility for a number of "lean fundamentals", including 5S and standardized work initatives. In my current role, I have worked with and visited factories in various stages of the lean journey, seeing products ranging from aerospace parts, $500,000 yachts, and fish sticks. I have learned that there are certain over-riding lean principles that are universal (value, flow, pull, perfection) and that certain tools are applicable in certain environments and at certain stages. 5S, alone, does not "equal lean" any more than "kanban equals lean." 5S is an important foundational step, but is only one piece of the lean puzzle.

5. I am hoping to learn more about the lean perspectives of different industries, union vs. non-union, etc. I am hoping to hear about how 5S has fit or not fit into the larger-scale lean initiatives. One topic I hope will be discussed is "Office 5S" -- does it create value to force your engineers into having clean desks? (I would argue that it does NOT add value the same way that 5S reduces waste on the shopfloor, where a common workspace and tool area might be shared by multiple shifts and multiple operators).

Posted 12:49 PM by Tom
Thanks for the invitation to join this group. Here is my introduction:

1. Name: Tom Knight

2. Current occupation: Founder & CEO, SAK Logistics

3. Connection to LFM/SDM network: LFM '92

4. Experience with Lean manufacturing: Lots. Alcoa (6 years), Siemens (2 years), SAK Logistics (4 years)

5. What you'd like to hear about from others: what works. what doesn't. how to know the difference. ;)