Great workplace organisation is the foundation of excellence!
- Tim Coles
- May 9, 2018
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 21, 2023
I’m a huge fan of 5S workplace organisation. I often hear people say though: “Isn’t it just good housekeeping?”
In a word - “No!” 5S is so much more than good housekeeping. 5S is used to minimise process waste by robustly arranging and setting-up work areas for optimum efficiency.
5S uses visual management, correct equipment of work areas, documented workplace organisation processes, leadership and auditing to ensure that work is right first-time, every-time.
Background:
The principles of 5S are thought to have originated from 16th century shipbuilders in Venice, however, in the 1970’s, Sakichi Toyoda and his son Kiichiro worked with Toyota engineer Taiichi Ohno to formalise 5S methodology for the Toyota Production System. The methodology offered Toyota employees a real sense of importance and pride in the workplace.
The original Japanese 5S’s are: “Seiri”, “Seiton”, “Seiso” “Seiketsu” & “Shitsuke”, however I prefer to use: “Sort”, “Set”, “Shine”, “Standardise” & “Sustain”.
In some organisations, “Safety” has been added as a 6th “S”, however, the value of this is debatable. In my view, safety is a precursor of everything and would appear at every stage of the process, not just at the end!
Benefits:
There are many benefits of 5S:
Improved safety
Improved quality
Improved efficiency
Improved maintenance
Improved employee engagement
Reduced space requirement (from lower inventory)
Process:
5S is best deployed in the order of Sort, Set, Shine, Standardise & Sustain. I’ll describe each step in more detail below:
1. Sort
The purpose of sort is to remove things that aren’t needed in the work area. The area is reviewed by the team and unnecessary items removed. Only the things that are needed to complete the work remain. Other items may sometimes be permitted depending on the type of environment. For example: plants in an office may be permitted to enhance the atmosphere.
Red tags are placed on unnecessary items that are due to be removed. Item location, description, date and persons name are written on the tag. The items are logged and after an agreed time, moved to a designated holding area. They are then disposed of, if uncollected.
2. Set
The purpose of set is to ensure that everything is in the optimum place, ensuring minimal process waste. When completing set, it’s important to minimise excessive motion and arrange things in order of process.
Item locations are identified using labels and coloured foot-prints. The use of green, amber and red can be used to indicate when things are in the right quantity, running out or out of stock. The example below demonstrates how this step helped to organise boxes of printer paper. The full footprint is shown to the left. In this example, this would indicate that the paper was out of stock. To the right of this, you can see how the footprint would look if there were 1 - 4 boxes:
The same principles can be used for many different types of work area. Before 5S, an office stationery order used to be completed by reviewing a long checklist, locating each item and counting how many were present. This sometimes took over an hour. After 5S, every stationery item in the cabinet was labelled with reorder quantities and colour-coded footprints. The time taken to complete the order was reduced from over an hour to minutes, as the team could easily see what they needed to re-order from a quick visual inspection of the stationery cabinet.
This website has some great photographs of 5S set.
3. Shine
This step is often perceived to be just cleaning a work area, however, it also focuses on ensuring that the work area is properly equipped with the right tools for the job, with a robust and effective maintenance and test schedule in-place.
The work area is thoroughly cleaned. All equipment / machinery is then inspected and tested to ensure that it meets the requirement of the work and a plan for ongoing maintenance is established to prevent equipment / machinery failure.
4. Standardise
This step locks in the new work area layout, ensuring that the high standards that have been achieved are robustly maintained. It documents the changes that have been made via standard operating procedures. Roles and responsibilities for workplace organisation are also defined and owned by the operational team.
Having standard operating procedures (SOP’s) for 5S as well as the work process, ensures that it’s clear what steps need to be taken to enable high workplace standards to be maintained. Check-lists, cleaning and maintenance / testing schedules and photographs of what good looks like also help to lock in the standard.
5. Sustain
This step is focused on ensuring that 5S is embedded. It’s critical that people see 5S as the new way of operating and that it’s not just “flavour of the month”.
Many things can be done to promote 5S sustainment. 5S audit checklists are a powerful way to ensure 5S sustainment. It is essential to confirm that there is no middle-ground, so check-lists should be marked with a “0” for non-compliant and “1” for compliant. The work area is either at the required standard or it isn’t! Key audit questions may include:
Is all safety signage & equipment in place and serviced?
Are all aisles and fire-exits clearly identifiable and clear of obstructions?
Is the work area free of items that should not be present?
Are all work areas clearly marked / labelled & free of debris?
Is all operational equipment in the correct place and clean, working and serviced?
Are all consumables in the correct place, clearly identifiable and at the required quantity?
Is all cleaning and maintenance equipment in place and being maintained correctly?
Is all documentation including standard operating procedures, logs and folders complete, up-to-date, clearly identifiable and in the correct place?
Are start and end-of-shift (or day) checks and shift handovers being completed and logged?
Have previously identified issues from 5S audits been addressed and corrective action implemented to prevent further issues?
To promote teamwork, competition and pride in the workplace, it helps to get people from different departments to conduct audits each other’s work areas.
The 5S numbers game is a very simple, fun and effective way of training people on the principles of 5S. Once they get that lightbulb moment, there is no turning back.
5S must be applied to all areas for it to be most effective, however, model areas can be used to demonstrate what great 5S looks like.
Appointing a 5S steering group to review progress, can also help implementation, especially if the group regularly walks-through the work areas and celebrates success.
Appointing 5S champions for each department can also help to maintain sustainment, however, it is important to note that the champions are there to ensure that everyone is trained and using 5S rather than to do it for them.
If everyone is trained on 5S and empowered to act on deviations from the standard, then a continuous cycle of improvement becomes a reality.
Summary
5S is not just housekeeping - it’s a process for creating and maintaining a safe, secure, organised, clean, well-equipped and high-performance working environment.
Great 5S enables problems to be identified with minimal intervention. 5S a fundamental element of lean. It’s also fun and easy to learn.
5S helps improve staff engagement and engenders pride in the workplace. Implementing it well, needs everybody at all-levels to be involved, accountable & responsible.
To achieve excellence, 5S must become a key part of the day job and time must always be made for it. 5S roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined and owned. The leadership team must also embrace it and ensure that the team know that it’s for the long-term.
The key to 5S success, as with all elements of lean, is to empower employees. If they have completed each of the 5S steps well, they’ll be engaged and motivated to continually maintain high workplace standards.
Great workplace organisation is the foundation of excellence! Do you still think that 5S is just housekeeping?
I hope that this has been an interesting and useful read. Please feel free to contact me and I'll discuss how I can help you to approach change.
