5S- The Foundation of Lean Manufacturing
5S is often misunderstood as just a mere housekeeping tool. Impact of having a successful 5S system is more profound than just keeping the place clean.
5S is the starting point of any lean transformation and forms a catalyst for culture of change. Due to the very visible results it makes the process of buy-in easy for both the shopfloor personnel and Management.
some of the key points why 5s forms the foundation of lean manufacturing is as follows:
- Standardisation of process provide a stable base for incremental improvement
- Visible results helps boost morale of the people who then take pride working in this area
- Is an enabler of Continuous Improvement culture
- Prepares the workplace and people for implementing other Lean tools like TPM, SMED etc.
5S implementation may sound easy but in reality it may be very complex and even more complex is how to sustain it. Not being able to sustain 5S is one of the biggest reason for failure any lean implementation project. Properly sustained 5s program helps continuously improve the workplace and shows managements commitment to the whole change process. Leader Standard Work is one of the way to sustain 5S and new control measures developed by implementing 5S.
I disagree that 5S is the foundation of lean. 5S is just a tool. Like any tool, it is meant to solve a problem. If you don’t have those problems, then 5S won’t deliver significant results. Many very successful lean journeys were not built on the back of 5S.
Despite how long it’s been around, people still screw up 5S repeatedly. I think the main reason is that they do 5S because 5S is a lean tool. They do it because it is easy. They aren’t doing it because it’s solving a problem that they have. 5S should organize the work so that problems become visible. That’s its purpose. Consider a NASCAR garage. How does the floor look? It’s spotless. Why? Because if there is a single drop of oil, you know about the problem right away. You don’t want to wait to find out you have a problem 100 laps into a race.
Here’s a simple tool, 5S, but starts off on the wrong foot. It’s applied without people knowing why they are doing it.
Jamie Flinchbaugh
http://www.jamieflinchbaugh.com
Jamie,
Thanks for your insight,I agree “foundation of lean” as title may have been too dramatic. And yes there may be processes where 5S is not so important, that completely depends on the current condition of the process. My opinions here are based experiences in improving manufacturing operation which was not standardized, with no documented processes, no planing, no measure…. absolute chaos. So you can imagine how 5S and standardized work takes dominance here.
There are many reasons why 5S fails. But I disagree 5S as just a tool, for that matter any other tool of Lean.During early application of lean when we are only creating point solution it may be OK to think of tools as just tools and apply them where required without considering how they all will fit together. But as we get further on the journey of lean transformation we align these tools with respect to the system requirement, this is the time when they cannot be just tools that are randomly applied.At this state just solving a problem is not the end we have to sustain the improvement.