How to create a 5-S Workplace for improved Business Performance

How does your workplace look like? 

What and how does your workplace look like, be it a work-table, an office, the entire plant site or your work-bag while moving around in market-field:

Do people at your workplace search for things, tools, parts, papers, etc. needed for the business processes you wish to perform? 

Do people throw things around at workplace carelessly? 

Is the workplace polluted & plagued by dusty, dirty, and unsafe (or dangerous) situations?

Are there frequent breakdowns of business processes in general & equipment in particular?

Does your customer-delivery process-flow get affected due to frequent or recurring delays, quality issues, etc. 'wastes'?

Is morale of employees and/or other stakeholders down due to recurring irritations such as above resulting in low performance?

If yes, then it is most likely that Cost-of-Poor-Quality (CoPQ) built into your company's Profit & Loss account is more than 15% of the Total Costs of Operations. 

Apart from this (your own as well that of other's) Safety, Hygiene, and even Environment is at stake.

And in order to overcome the corresponding risks, you badly need Five-S!

For Various Posters such as above: Click here to see Table of Contents

Pictures here-above are PURPOSELY KEPT  in LOW RESOLUTION. Click here to see Actual Resolution YOU will GET

What is Five-S?

5-S is a management innovation evolved by Japanese industry from commonsense living practices. 

Easy to remember 5-English-words having nearly the same meaning are: 

1/ Sorting Out for Seiri, 

2/ Systematic Arrangement for Seiton, 

3/ Shine or Spic-n-Span cleanliness inspection for Seiso, 

4/ Standardizing for Seiketsu and 

5/ Self-Discipline and Training for Shitsuke.

Seiri-based improvements for instance help in making a workplace transparent, free-of-clutter and hold-ups. 

Thereby it facilitates interruption-free, smooth-flow of processes and hence reduced Cost-of-Poor-Quality (CoPQ) as a result of eliminated causes of costs. 

Why Five-S?

The objective of 5-S is to - create a Visual-Factory-Workplace & - save tangible costs such as above along with corresponding intangibles such as to improve morale and improve engagement of your stakeholders/employees.

How does Five-S help in making a typical workplace competitive? 

There was this rack full of clutter above kitchen platform in an apartment. A piece of nylon cloth from it fell over the gas stove below and became the cause enough to set the house on fire. In another case, there was this snack-shop (a part of a quick-service-restaurant: QSR retail-chain outlet) that had cartons on floor spilled with frying-oil on it. Inadvertently, it caught fire and the multi-story structure above the QSR was gutted claiming many lives apart from affecting performance of a few businesses. 

Can you now imagine the importance of the 'costly' lesson that they learned post-the-fire!: To do, Seiri-principle-based improvements in order to prevent clutter & thereby accidents/breakdowns/crises around!

Seiton-based improvements in order to neatly arrange the workplace so that the needed things are available within reach and within a few seconds!  The result is effort-less, defect-free, speedy processes!

Seiso based improvements, in order to make the workplace cleaner, breakdown-free and defect-free by eliminating the corresponding root causes. 

Seiketsu in order to  create highly standardized workplace so that repeat-ability of attained standards is achieved & sustained. 

Shitsuke in order to create a learning organization so that higher standards are aimed at, achieved & new benchmarks are created. 

5-S thereby helps in improved productivity, quality-of-work and reduced costs-of-quality (CoQ) if implemented with a strategic objective in mind rather than misunderstanding it as and merely reducing it as 'rule-book-for-housekeeping'. This module shows the participants (top management in particular) of 'Why-What-How' of doing so.

What will the participants learn? – (Generic Contents for the 1+1 day duration as in the table below): 

1. Preliminary-assessment by work-sampling (including Business-specific Need-assessment)

2. Base-Audit Scores, alignment on the findings and its impact on business!

3. Awareness about 5-S: What is 5-S? It's principles-&-practices.

4. How it helps improve performance and measurable goals on Productivity, Quality, Costs, Safety, Health, Morale, etc.

5. How to enable 5-S implementation (so as to create continual improvement culture) 

6. How to participate in enabling the 5-S culture?

7. Align to the 5-S Implementation Approach as follows:

How To Evolve and Undertake The IMPLEMENTATION Road-Map: A typical 4-stage journey?

Stage-1: Preliminary or Preparation stage: Laying Foundation & Piloting              I- - - -I 6-months       

Stage-2: Initial implementation, Pilot improvement & 'Kick-Off'                                   I- - -I 1-year

Stage-3: Full implementation or full development of each 5-S-Pillar                            I- - - - - - - -I 1-to-2-years

Stage-4: Maturity: Steady application & Institutionalization (Audits & Certification)               I- - - - - - - Graduate To TPM, Lean - -I

            Role of Gemba-Kaizen Action, Small-Group-Activity, One-Point-Lessons (OPL) & Daily Management (Nichijo-Kanri) in each of 5-S-Pillars.

8. Alignment with the target audience to create a Demo-Pilot. 

9. Organise for the required improvement culture: PREPARATION of RESOURCES for the next step.

10. Interactive session in order to satisfy your business specific queries. 

For Activity Milestones (Tentative Themes & Contents) considered in Implementation Roadmap: 

Refer book 'Visual Management Through 5-S, 5-S in 5-Days: Fundamental Kaizen Tool To Create Kaizen Culture' by Shyam Talawadekar

Duration: (Session-1: (9.30 Register), Session-2: (11.30 -13), Session-3: (13.45 Report), Session-4: (15.30 -17 approx)

 * Key milestones may get reorganized & reworked for depth & for greater effectiveness depending upon audience/duration/objective of the course as in the table above. 

For effective results, please ask for diagnostic questions on the above points & reply before the course.

Methodology (depending upon availability of time and teaching aids): Presentations, Case studies, Exercises, Action-oriented Gemba Kaizen depending upon the proximity of workplace, Group Discussions, Video clippings, etc. (The participant company may arrange Industrial Visits.)

Course Material: The book 'Visual Management Through 5-S, 5-S in 5-Days: Fundamental Kaizen Tool To Create Kaizen Culture'  by Shyam Talawadekar

Please do e-mail/ask for customized-contents of the module 

to create a 5-S Workplace and Road-map for the same.

For Various Posters such as above: Click here to see Table of Contents. 

Pictures here-above are PURPOSELY KEPT  in LOW RESOLUTION. 

Click here to see Actual Resolution YOU will GET.