Introduction to 5S The Launch Pad for Business Success B.P.Moorthy and B.P.

.Shasank Kalyan Directors, Sun Consulting, Hyderabad, India bpmoorthy@gmail.com, shasank.kalyan@gmail.com Abstract We do know about a basic concept like 5S. Many of us might even be practicing 5S in a form we think fit. The Japanese, who gave us this concept, strongly believe that if 5S is not there, there is no Quality, no Six Sigma, no Lean System and no Excellence. Do we also believe in 5S intently? We know 5S improves cleanliness. Do we believe 5S is fundamental for better work flow, allows us to manage processes efficiently and effectively? Do we agree that 5S is the foundation for efficiency improvement? 5S contributes to reduction in rework costs caused by poor control on the process inputs. The workforce of 5S factory is more disciplined in the way they conduct the work, handle work tools and the work-in-process around their work station. These and many other benefits of 5S is what we discuss in this paper. 1. Introduction 5S denotes the familiar 5 Japanese words SEIRI, SEITON, SEISO, SEIKETSU and SHITSUKE meaning Proper arrangement, Orderliness, Cleanliness, Clean Up, and Discipline. Some consultants call the same as Clearing Up, Organizing, Cleaning, Standardization, Training and Discipline. A few text books call 5S as Straighten up, Put things in Order, Clean up, Cleanliness and Discipline. The American fraternity calls the same 5S as Sifting, Sorting, Sweeping & Washing, Standardizing, and Self-Discipline. One more S is also added by some to represent Safety. Whatever is the word used for each of these, 5S ultimately indicates 5 levels of Work Place rating, as defined by Tomo Sugiyama. Tomo Sugiyama in the simplest language divides workplaces in to 3 categories Work Places where (a) people leave trash, tolerate it, no one steps in to pick it up or clear it up, (b) people leave trash, some do not tolerate it, pick it up and throw out, (c) people do not leave trash, people do not tolerate it. Every one picks it up, and very clearly this is the factory with good House-Keeping. Such a factory imagines that the customer frequently visits their Work Place, and every one in the factory sees the work place from customers perspective. Such a factory also believes that the customer expects high degree of presentable environment in the factory reflected by clean floors, tidy machines and nothing less than perfect orderliness every where, neat and spacious lawns, peaceful outers, good looking bright buildings housing bright and smart disciplined people welcoming them. It is imperative for any Work Place or factory that orderliness and proper arrangement are essential for easy and disciplined functioning. Chaos and improper set up would mean costly and poor work practices. Japanese have taught the business world the need to recognize 5S as the starting point for any improvements in Work Place. There can be no TQM, TPM, JIT, Kaizen, ISO/TS without 5S. A dirty factory can only produce dirty, low quality goods and services. Repeatability and consistency is impossible in an ill-organized work place. Rejected products and products waiting for rework would easily get mixed up with good products. Poorly organized warehouses are prone to wrong deliveries, wrong billing and similar mistakes thus incurring customer dissatisfaction. Clutters of unwanted items in the same location where wanted items are placed hides the real problems. A neat and orderly work place promotes

easy discovery of abnormalities enabling operators to take immediate and prompt preventive action. 2. What causes unwanted clutter in a Work Place? There are innumerable number and types of reasons that cause accumulation of unwanted items in a work place, around work stations, wall corners, stores, warehouses, offices, pathways, bays, Plant Maintenance Areas, and open yards etc. The foremost reason for unwanted clutter is indecision about usage. Every one keeps thinking that the said item or material can be used at a later time. When is this later time? It may never come, not surprisingly. As we go on, we will elaborate some circumstances that we often come across in the Shop Floor, which lead to such filth accumulation. Canon called their 5S movement as Use your legs and eyes; do regular checks and evaluations. This highlights the second most important reason people work without being conscious to the environment, literally eyes blinded and mind closed. Employees feel it is someone elses job, may be the job of House-Keeping department. The so-called House-Keeping department would not even know whether the material available is trash or otherwise! People tolerate trash and in many companies they have seen the same condition from their first day of work. I have personally known a small Foundry which looked like a cattle shed and a Forge shop which resembled a black smithy. Even the Management there believed that a Foundry or Forge shop cannot be cleaner! Ignorance is bliss. Another form of ignorance is non-recognition of advantages to be clean and tidy. Another class of people resign themselves that it is not going to be as tidy and clean tomorrow even if they take some steps today. Some of the other reasons could be: (a) Operators give priority only to targets and are always busy in production jobs; (b) Management considers that House-Keeping costs time, labour and money, but produces no return; (c) The quality and productivity relationship to cleanliness is not well understood; (d) Supervisors and Managers also leave semi-finished parts (in bulk) as work-in-progress near the machine area, assuming that demand would arise shortly; (e) The Managers are afraid to move the broken tools, jigs, fixtures, trolleys, pallets, bins etc., as they will be documented and accounted for. The value of such rejects might reflect as black mark against them. (f) Tools and gauges that are due to go to Standards Room for calibration and to Tool Room for rework/shaping/regrinding remain in one corner pending documentation, and sometimes meeting the fate of misplacement, mix up or damage. (g) When set up changes take place, the jigs, dies and fixtures are removed in to parts with a view to re-assemble after some minor repairs; the repair gets delayed for reasons of expediency and some of these parts get mixed up or lost. A host of such reasons exist, and the list could go unimaginably longer. Hence, it is better to start the 5S campaign early. Early enough so other necessary techniques for improvement do not get further delayed. The clustering is true in our households also old papers, shoes, socks, dust accumulated books, empty cans, tins, broken chairs, damaged suitcases, broken clips so on and so forth a big list of unwanted items can be prepared.

Very clearly it is Attitude and easy going nature which causes unwanted clutter. Majority of the people feel that something from these heaps can be used some day. Hence, the accumulation of clutter is encouraged. For many their mind would not permit them to throw away old things, because throwing away is considered a waste. They do not realize that not throwing away is also a waste a waste of space, and also a waste of valuable time due to frequent searching in the junk. There was one instance in a factory setting when a press tool had all the parts except some punches. The punches being very small parts were just misplaced because the workers at the assembly time did not care to assemble properly. When the need arose they searched all over for two hours, lost hope and went in for production of new punches. What a colossal waste of time? In spite of several such instances, the company never improved in their orderliness, till they went for a 5S program. There is another instance of Attitude. A company realizes the need for 5S. However they keep on delaying the 5S program because it is afraid that it is difficult to sustain. Also, it does not have trained people to start the process. They had several opportunities to send their employees for Training, but they could not spare people. Calling Consultants to their premises to conduct training courses is also delayed for the same reasons. So the process is never started. 3. How to start 5S? 5S cannot be started just with slogans, pomp and trumpeting. 5S should start with Training and Education on 5S, and end with Training and Discipline. Discipline in this context means Standardization, Audit and improvement through Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Internal Trainers must be trained thoroughly by Consultants, and many times the presence of Consultants at the time of starting 5S would help enthuse people. All the people without exception must be made to understand that 5S is the starting point for all improvements in the Work Place. Improvements include productivity, efficiency, quality of product, service, cost, delivery and safety. 5S must be kept simple to be made practical. 5S should be demonstrated by hand holding. Management must be on the help mode rather than on the criticism mode, and should show eagerness and concern. 5S cannot be commanded, as coercion would not give lasting results. 5S ranking is taken as a parameter in performance appraisal of Supervisory staff, but not the workers. In other words, some amount of indirect coercion is possible with Supervisory and Management staff and such indirect coercion is advisable. The Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of a large Indian Automobile Company with an annual turnover of over Rs.5,000 Crore and employing over 3,000 people, walks around the factory for more than half a day in every visit to the factory. In his real Indian style of Gemba, he picks up trash paper, waste cotton and such items lying in the walkway and throws them in the dustbin nearby. He makes it a point to walk into mens washrooms, the scrap yard, and the kitchen of the canteen in every visit. It is not surprising that the Departmental Manager would walk with him and keenly observes what he does, what he speaks or does not speak. The Departmental Manager gets the message and would try to avoid such unwanted spill all over the place, by the time of the next visit of the CMD. The CMD clearly exhibits his personal interest by standing at 5S charts observing the rating and does not fail to appreciate the 5S coordinator. If he does not recognize the 5S coordinator

around him and goes away without talking to him, then that gives the message to the concerned that 5S is not satisfactory in that area. The CMD would not do audits himself. He would leave that rigorous exercise of audit and rating work to the coordinators. He would only see whether serious 5S is being done or is it just lip service that is going on among employees. If he does not enter that Department and just crosses over, the message is that he resented even the general look of that Department from outside itself and that it needs improvement. The CMD made innovative ways to introduce 5S. The wash-rooms throughout the factory are made open. There are no more closed mens wash-rooms, achieving more than two goals. They became spic and span, airy, and as good as 5 Star Hotel toilets. There is no need for NO SMOKING boards. There used to be 5 closed toilets at one end of the bay, but now there are 5 open toilets spread out at various places in the bay, which are neat and tidy. The CMDs visits to Suppliers or Dealers factories inevitably end up in good 5S there. The scrap yard is no longer the responsibility of only the Manager-Stores who hardly has time to visit. Now by turns each Senior Manager holds responsibility of overseeing and is jointly responsible along with Stores Manager for cleanliness of the scrap yard. Now it has become orderly, with areas ear-marked for each type of scrap getting in. It is also well segregated and presentable. The 5S exercise in the scrap yard is worth its effort as it commands higher scrap value, since there is no mix-up and is pure. The auction participants have become more disciplined. Of course in the process, scrap auction has been made e-auction. The auction room contains computers wherein they can see the visuals of each area of the scrap yard and material there, the quantity available, and straight away enter auction quotes. Now the same data is available on line, allowing online e-auction. Some companies start the 5S program with a big function, and a meeting of all employees with the Consultant being present. A vision statement is made followed by a signature campaign. Other steps like selection of 5S chairman, coordinators in each zone, zone maps, and allocation of zones to coordinators, team members in 5S zonal committees, and a rough cut activity plan with target dates, are taken. A most conspicuous 5S corner will be created for exhibiting the important events of the 5S activity. In each zone, fixed points are well coloured and identified as photography points. The exhibits on the boards will be updated by TQC Department as frequently as is felt necessary. The coordinators will update the 5S Boards in their respective zones. The senior executives like General Managers and VicePresidents also could be coordinators in their respective Departments in order to motivate lower level employees. 4. How to implement 5S? By now, high degree of awareness had come to employees, though they had not experienced the benefits. They heard a lot in the training program and they were excited. They were given examples from bench-mark companies in the neighbourhood. Some principles that help implementation are: (a) Implementation should be in stages and in limited areas, and step by step. (b) One should not rush the program in the entire factory. The Chairman, coordinators and members of 5S should draw a plan that is practical about what can be implemented perfectly. We should not take for granted that every one is sold to the concept already and hurry, but we have to proceed slowly. (c) Support through declaring 5S as Management Policy Agenda is needed. This would go a long way, since all members will talk even if they are spread in various locations.

(d) Make 5S a Science and introduce through scientific steps. Management must write out unpublished SOPs and start implementation 5S in one after another zone/shop by following systematically the same steps. Once 5S becomes a way of life, the SOP can be regularized as a document. (e) Once 5S program is introduced in one area and the employees of that zone start feeling proud, and start getting awards, all other departments would follow suit. They would even feel ashamed if they could not do better than others. Indirect departments like Security Services, Canteen, and Medical Centre would fall in line late, but would do equally well. (f) Make the people feel comfortable in understanding, and provide support. 5. More about 5S implementation SEIRI (Cleaning up; Sorting; Straighten up): Seiri is the first step and being first level activity, has to be implemented thoroughly. Though the employees are enthused, they do not start unless there is guidance and support from Management staff. They will hesitate to declare anything as unwanted and there the main delay takes place. They continue to have hesitancy as to what to clear up and what not to, till they get going. That initial start is to be given by the Chairman and Coordinators of 5S. Once the work starts the workers will go fast in clearing up and will have good logic developed about what is wanted and what is not wanted. The whole idea is to remove all unnecessary items, and decide locations for items which are required in future. These are further classified in to close-by locations for items where the usage could be frequent, say every month. Distant locations could be for items which are likely to be used every 2 6 months frequency. Such identification is the crux of the activity in Seiri phase. As we discussed earlier in this article the main event is decision on use of the material. Since the coordinator of the zone is normally a senior worker or supervisor, he guides the process of decision and by collective wisdom all material is classified. All scrap items are documented then and there and disposed to the scrap yard. All items beyond 6 months usage are moved to Central Red Tag area already allocated through Red Tag Card. The Central Red Tag Area is located in well approachable area to all zones. Any other zone might have use for such material, in which event the same will get transferred from Central Red Tag area to that user department, by a transfer document. Each zone will maintain the red tags of material moved to Central Area and keep track. The list moved to Central Red Tag Area will be exhibited in the Central 5S boards and also notified by e-mail to all zonal coordinators. The Red Tag format is not necessarily same among companies but generally must contain all the data given below. (See Table 1) All activities pertaining to all Red Tags would get completed by specified dates, and the pending Red Tag status would be discussed in the weekly meeting by the Zonal members. There would be a fortnightly meeting of the Zonal coordinators and the 5S Chairman in which all common items would be discussed in detail. Any policy hurdles or difficulties arising from situations that need Top Management attention would be brought to the attention of Company President. If in a given time span, other departments do not show interest in the material moved to Central Red Tag area, the coordinators will decide to move to Stores, Scrap yard or White Elephant Area, after this meeting.

White Elephant Area is the area where obsolete Machinery, Equipment, Transformers, Motors, Tools, Gauges, Jigs and fixtures, Finished Products and Bulk Raw material will be stored for sale. A periodic inspection by outside parties like suppliers, market dealers, and auctioneers will be allowed on specified dates in a month, and offers will be released. This area is only for bulk obsolete items and not for small items. The photographs of these items would also be exhibited on the website for the convenience of e-auction operators. E-mail updates are being sent to select e-auctioneers periodically. Certain major policy decisions on Make or Buy, Model changes, Model Mix changes, Life Cycle decisions on products would take place often due to changes in market conditions and technology changes. Such decisions could result in obsolescence of bulk items like machinery, equipment, tooling and raw materials. These are all conscious and well thought out strategic decisions by Top Management. The follow on action is on disposal of these obsolete items. If the actions do not follow in quick succession, the unwanted items will accumulate. A major auto ancillary unit from Chennai, right from inception started using a battery of multi-spindle automats for producing end fittings of their end product and felt after a decade of use, that the technology is quite simple and decided to farm out all the parts as bought out parts. The multi-spindle automats were declared for sale to the suppliers and offered as an incentive to underwrite the capacity for 5 years. Suppliers came forward to buy all the machines, jigs, fixtures and tooling, since business was also assured. The Unit had achieved four objectives which are (a) Buying several components at much lesser cost than Made in Works cost (b) Selling all low technology machines at much higher prices than written down book values (c) saving one full bay of space for other operations, and (d) Sparing the services of over thirty senior operators for multi-skill training in other strategic areas. To summarize, 3 major types of activities are handled in Seiri phase (a) Segregation of wanted and unwanted items without ambiguity (b) Fixation of central Red Tag area (c) Marking 2 or 3 fixed photography points in each zone/bay/area, so that before and after status would be clear. Excuses by employees like no time, no manpower, it will return to the same condition as before again, and no use doing it will not appear, as they would know that Management will no longer accept such evasive attitude. Resistance will come down, and competition between zones would be apparent. Benefits like recognition, scoring and awards apparently speak for themselves. Every departmental head will be eager to give training program to his men. Better working environment, lot of free space, improvement in safety, and free gangways are the immediate benefits of Seiri, the first level 5S activity. SEITON is organizing/put things in order/orderliness. Seiton is to bring in total proper arrangement. In Seiton, what needs to be decided is how should we keep? In what order? And how much? This phase being more organizing, to the exact need would involve proper listing of all items needed and decide storage design planning, decisions pertaining to area and space requirements, reorder points, locations and type of locations like slots, angle racks, storage and retrieval procedures, with ergonomics as basis. This is more technical oriented

work. The coordinator, normally the Supervisor of the department or senior-most operator has to play a vital role in coordinating with Production Engineering (PED) and Stores departments who have expertise in such matters of equipment required to store neatly and easy operation of Storage and retrieval. In addition organizing involves movement of men and material, so entry and exit areas, approach to Electrical panel areas are to be properly set. This is more like Facility Planning activity and expert Industrial Engineers from other departments need to assist the coordinators of various zones. Standardizing the simple storage and retrieval systems in various zones, to achieve uniformity, good looks, and least cost of equipment is necessary. Many companies appoint a Task Force consisting of Industrial engineers and the 5S coordinators. This approach gives better results due to the holistic view taken but at the same time not ignoring requirements of individual zones. At the end of this activity, A place for everything and everything in its place is achieved. Many good companies employ Poka-yoke (Mistake Proofing) and Kaizen principles and continuously improve orderliness. Orderliness will reduce human efforts; damages will come down, apart from easy and fast location. Identification by colour, code numbers, and better area utilization takes place. Surprisingly, layout in each zone becomes more efficient, though nobody specifically works for layout change. This is an inevitable result when so many people focus on that area, which never happened earlier. There are cases where workers in that department express wonder at the way their work place had improved. To summarize the Seiton activity, it gives visible benefits of search time drastically coming down, saving of manpower and effort, elimination of non-value added activity, improvement in ergonomics, high degree of orderliness, and improvement in safety. All these visible effects can be seen in the Fixed Point Photographs which are taken before and after. The invisible but sure results would be in the form of smooth production flow. In the offices, reception area, time office, security booth and indirect services like canteen, kitchen, and outside periphery, lot of acceptability and orderliness would be noticed. Laboratories, service wings, shoe stands, dress change-over areas and night rest rooms would get better. SEISO is cleaning up; and being spic and span. Seiso is the 3rd level activity. Here more emphasis is on cleaning, dusting, painting of the machines, jigs, fixtures, racks, electrical switch boards, fans, tool stands, lights, cupboards, books, book-shelves, and furniture in offices, office equipment and computers, and conduits. In external areas, water tanks, sewage pits, sewage lines, pillars, posts, boards, glass and window panes, powerhouse and oil tanker holding areas, parking lots, and all areas around the factory, are cleaned, dusted and painted afresh. New and modern cleaning methods differentiated from traditional and known methods, which are more effective and time saving would be introduced. Every one realizes that dust and dirt affects health, men and machine performance too. Cleaning reveals hidden problems and overlooked problems to enable 5S teams to rectify. In this phase, cleaning and maintenance schedules will be decided for all areas without exception. Cleaning standards followed by check lists would be established. This enables perfection in audits and scoring the areas. (See Table 2) SEISO is the methodology to ensure Spic and Span.

SEIKETSU is Standardization. It is to establish standards that are to be the basis for evaluation of performance, checking, ranking or scoring and arriving at a plan for continuous improvements. Operation Standards which in engineering parlance are called SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) in the areas of quality, production, machine maintenance, safety, traffic management, stores management etc., are well known in any Company. Visual Control Systems, Check Lists for house keeping and maintenance and standard score cards, Fixed point photographs and standards thereof (including things like usage of the same camera every time from the same point, by same operator preferably) are what is being expected of in this exercise of Seiketsu. It is a well known fact, that standards help deskilling a job and ensuring repeatability. Due to this feature, works efficiency would improve represented through reliability and quality improvement. Since all companies have experience of fixing SOPs in direct areas, it may not really be difficult to establish SOPs in indirect areas, and especially 5S. Concentrated effort would be made to establish standardization in the following areas: (a) Company colour; (b) Logo colour, shape, dimensions; (c) Letter dimensions and shapes, font etc. Colour for exteriors and interiors of buildings, entrances, exits, offices, cabins, warehouses; colour of transport, cars, trucks, ambulance; colour of the machinery, jigs, fixtures, pipe lines, water, oil and overhead lines, floor, gangways, trolleys, bins, pallets, internal material handling equipments are elements of Seiketsu. Colour and directions in parking lots and internal roads, crossing directions, colour for medical centre, ambulance, and explosive material storage areas are part of Seiketsu. Standardization of letter sizes and colour for various boards, uniforms, badges and almost every item one comes across in the course of business are part of Seiketsu. Most of the automobile manufacturers extended the logic of standardization to their external associates like dealers, suppliers and other supply chain partners. And SOPs are incorporated in sales, delivery, and servicing processes. In the Financial Sector, both in banking and non-banking wings, insurance, Mutual Fund companies have followed the same path. Even at a glance, without reading, we recognize whether it is ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda or Birla Sunlife Insurance. The standards these institutions follow enhances Brand image too. We easily recognize a Reebok showroom or a Raymond showroom because of this standardization. In Seiketsu Operation, not only TQC, PED, and Marketing departments play an important role, but also many times external professional Advertising Agency help is also sought. These professional experts not only make SOPs simple and user friendly, but bring mileage though brand establishment. SHITSUKE is Training and Discipline. This is the 5th level of 5S which vouches for continuous training, for existing and new employees. 5S needs continuous monitoring and improvement and hence continuous training. Discipline in 5S could elude for two main reasons (a) absence of audits and promotions and (b) absence of training. Once standards are established, audits must happen and audit dates and time must be an SOP. Similarly in the

annual training calendar, 5S dates must be published, and those departments who have to send representatives for training must be signalled to do so. Part of the discipline is implementation of suggestion schemes pertaining to 5S. A leaking water tap, an unattended hanging wire, a cobweb in a corner, a stinking wash basin go unnoticed, but not by a vigilant suggestion scheme. 5S Chairman and Zone Coordinators must maintain and analyse audit scores in each meeting. The analysis is not only just noticing the score per se, but to ensure that the audits are unbiased and serious. Any casual approach to audits must be corrected promptly. They also have to mentor the zones where 5S is to be improved. My real time experience reveals that some zones that were doing well on 5S activity go down for various reasons. The reasons are to be analysed and support must be extended for such zones. The change of supervisor in a department, seasonal production pressure, backlog commitment, transfer of senior workers to other departments is the reason why 5S activity goes down. But since these are part of business, Management never considers them as valid reasons for slackness in 5S activity. The Coordinating Committee has to give timely help. Sustained Training gives basic discipline, and sustained audits give fillip to 5S activity. Canon, Toyota, GE, IBM or Walmart for example, are business groups that are expanding their product and manufacturing range continuously to sustain their global presence and market share. Canon from the start gives high importance to 5S in all their business premises, and continuously emphasizes training and recognition. Canon annually awards 5S Plaques in appreciation to such excellent premier work centres so that they act as models of excellence for others. Canon declares that 5S helped them in two ways. (a) The change in workers consciousness a readiness to follow the rules and do what has been decided, that got entrenched throughout the work place. The discipline that never broke down reduces delays, and wasted motion and helps visually to control the workplace. (b) Benefit in the manufacturing process itself like no accidents, no equipment breakdowns, no searching, increased work efficiency and lower defect rates. This had been the experience all over the business world and with excellent companies that gave Policy Status to 5S. 6. References [1] How to implement 5-S practice? ABK-Dosakai, Chennai, July 2006. [2] Training Programme on 5-S & Housekeeping by Centre for Excellence, Bangalore April 1999 [3] Canon Production System by Japanese Mgt. Association Productivity Press, 1987, Pages 78-85

Table 1: Red Tag Sample Serial No.: Date: Zone: RED TAG Item Details & Quantity Approximate value: Target Date to Complete Action: Surplus (Move to Central Red Tag Area): Sell (Move to Auction store): Useful after 6 months (Move to Handling stores): WIP unfinished parts / components / sub assemblies (Move to Semi finished stores): Rejected / mix up / defective / unfinished parts (Move to Semi finished stores): Waste No value (Move to Scrap Yard): Scrap (Move to Scrap Yard): Sell (Move to White Elephant area): Responsibility: Mr. Employee No.: Designation: Table 2: Sample Check List Fill all columns. No column should be left blank and vague. Serial No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Where (Area) What (Checking criteria) When (Frequency) Who (Person responsible) How (Method of Cleaning)

Machine no. A50 Walls in Zone 2 Electric Board in South Wall Zone 4 Computer in Zone 2 Oil Line in Zone 2 Water Line in Zone 3