Applying Lean concepts at workplace has now been accepted worldwide as the best thing to do in both manufacturing as well service industries.
Companies are spending huge amount of money, resources on training of resources, hiring consultants and implementing Lean and Six sigma to improve bottom line. Number of books are available in market on Lean and Six sigma in any bookshop in management section book shelves.
But there are only few companies, who have really succeeded and implemented the lean. Why it is so?
The tools used by most of the companies are same, customized a little bit based on the requirement of organization but the intent and methodology is same. Still companies fail to implement the initiative? Fail to get the desired results? Even if some companies are able to show results, they fail to sustain over a longer period of time. Why???
When I analyze the failures 9 out of 10 times I stumble upon only one cause. And that is mindset. The failure lies in mindset of the people who are implementing the program.
I personally feel, if I understand the intent of Lean methodology, then the Lean tools becomes the enablers to implement the program. But many of us think of using the tools without understanding them in deeper sense. How else you explain the failure of 5 S or Kaizen programs, leave aside the other complex tools.
Let’s take 5 S for example.
5S is the best practice of establishing basic discipline and order in the workplace, using the following five Japanese concepts
In most places, 5 S are the five words which imply SEIRI, SEISO, SEITON, SEIKETSU, and SHITSUKE (In English, sort, shine, set in order, standardize and sustain).
We provide training and expect the workforce to implement the program. Without providing the deeper understanding on it. And then we start blaming our culture, our upbringing etc….. We fail because we start with the wrong meaning, wrong understanding of 5 S as the tool/ methodology to keep our workplace neat and clean.
Is it what 5 S all about? A mere a housekeeping improvement tool. You talk to all managers in the area where 5 S is being implemented. He will talk about how good the housekeeping is or how bad the employees are?
How many of us, when we really think of 5 S as the systematic way of improving the workplace. Take a close look into your kitchen and you will know what 5 S means. It is much more than a housekeeping tool. It has deeper meaning.
Let’s have a look into it.
1.Seiri (sort):
Contrary to the normal understanding of sorting out what is required and not, it also means once you sort out the things, analyze why do you have it in first place. What should you do for not accumulating the same again? Is it not the dead inventory of raw materials, machinery, tools which you brought by paying capital. And the capital is not is use. It’s a huge loss. Every time we do a red tag day, we take out number of trolleys filled with unusable inventory. And take pride in the number of trolleys discarded. But isn’t it a shameful waste of money and resources?
If we do not analyze why we are accumulating the material, which is not being used, we will go on having red tag day every month and wasting money.
So when we do sorting, analyze why we have this material / tool / machinery there.
Sometimes some machineries are not used because of lack of understanding and training and then find their way in scrap yard.
When we do the sorting, let’s ask this questions.
Why the material is lying unutilized?
Who ordered it?
What was the intended use?
When was it last used?
Where else it can be used?
How did it land up unutilized?
Use simple tool of 5W 1H extensively and you will notice that the repetitive spoilers are coming down.
Sometimes some machineries are not used because of lack of understanding and training and then find their way in scrap yard.
When we do the sorting, let’s ask this questions.
Why the material is lying unutilized?
Who ordered it?
What was the intended use?
When was it last used?
Where else it can be used?
How did it land up unutilized?
Use simple tool of 5W 1H extensively and you will notice that the repetitive spoilers are coming down.
Find root cause of existence of the non-utilized material and take corrective action. Ask the team to follow standard methodology of using 5 Why or Why- Why analysis.
It is believed that asking why 5 times generally lead you to root cause of the problem. But it requires the ability to ask proper questions. Develop this ability in the team. It takes lots of practice to use these tools.x
Seiri is not a onetime activity, it’s a daily ongoing process. If we understand it, explain it to all the operators / users in detail. Reach to the persons who are involved, even if they are not part of the shop floor. But have contributed towards it. Work with them to plug the loopholes and you will see visible difference.
Here it is important to introduce one simple concept of Abnormality.
By definition Abnormality is anything which is not as per standard. It sounds very simple. But still when we go to shop floor we found abnormality. You ask the operators and they will be able to probably identify but not always.
This is one of the reason for failure of 5 S initiative. Most of the time operators are not able to identify what the abnormality is? Thus it is important to develop basic standard after completion of Sort. The standard shall answer following questions.
- 1. What is the acceptable level of inventory which will be on the shop floor?
- 2. What are essential tools which shall be kept?
- 3. Where is the place to temporary store the unwanted items?
- 4. What is the process of identification of unwanted items?
- 5. Who is authorize to take a decision on removal of unwanted items and what shall be the frequency?
Once the standard is define, train everyone on the process, standard requirement and keep a simple tracking sheet or abnormality register in that zone.
The abnormality register can be a simple log of abnormalities found during the day and what actions have been taken on those abnormalities.