Sorting

The first principle of Lean 5S that can be applied to the retail industry is Seiri, or Sort as it translates to in English. The retail application of this principle to both merchandise and fixtures, and involves sorting out items and tools that are useful from the tools that are not. In this way, a company can eliminate the useless items and keep their storages and work areas clean. The useless or not essential tools can be kept temporarily in other rooms until they need to be used.

Straighten

The second principle involves the creation of a storage area where needed items can stay. Retails should determine the perfect location for each tool so that it can be reached easily when it is required. Retails can tag or paint each tool and put them near others that do similar jobs or processes.

Cleaning

Cleaning is an important aspect of maintaining a retail store. It is an activity that forms the first impression to customers and clean places attract more customers. Systematic cleaning also means taking good care of the tools and equipment that are used. Cleaning should be done every day and to make the place shine the tools or equipment that are not working should be immediately repaired or replaced so that nothing remains obsolete.

Standardize

Standardizing means analyzing the processes and activities at the business to identify which work properly and increase productivity. This can help retails remove the processes and practices that no longer suit them and do not enhance the services provided. Retails can involve in this process all the participants at the firm as everyone can contribute toward creating better standard practices. Also, by collaborating with people that actually perform these tasks, firms can pinpoint easier what is working and what is not. One strategy that can be implemented to identify the working tasks is to make daily checklists to see if the requirements are being met.

Sustain

The final principle of Lean 5S involves checking if the other processes work properly, and repairing or replacing them if not. Lean 5S can help retails improve their business and productivity which results in increased revenues and more customers.

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When it comes to Six Sigma methods and tools, the 5S method has been one of the most successful. This is due to its simplicity in describing the steps a process in the workplace should be comprised of to make it optimal. 5S originated in Japan and has proven to be one of the most invaluable Six Sigma methods the world over since it does an efficient job at reducing wastage in a process.

In Japan, the five Ss in 5S are seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuk. In English, they translate to sort, straighten, shine, standardize and sustain. These steps are sequential and incremental steps. This means they all need to be done in order since each step builds upon the last. If a step is missed or out of sequences the resulting process will miss its improvement window.

The diagram below shows what the five Ss of 5S are and the order in which they should be performed.

Before we talk about 5S in more detail, there is an extra S that is worth mentioning: Safety. Before undertaking any project or event, safety requirements need to be established. Furthermore, they need to be evaluated at every stage of the project or event to ensure everything is going smoothly and no one is in danger.

Once a process has been identified that could use 5S performance improvement, the following steps need to be conducted to make the event successful.

1. Sort (Seiri)

It all starts with making an inventory of all items and then sorting them out into two categories: necessary and unnecessary. This includes all equipment and materials. Those items that go into the list of unnecessary things need to be discarded, leaving only those that have been deemed necessary. Before being categorized, the items need to be red-tagged. After that, their fate is discussed with the appropriate stakeholders who then decide whether to keep or discard them.

2. Straighten (Seiton)

With only the essential items remaining, the next step involves putting them where they belong. The items must be arranged in a way that retrieving and storing them is easy and convenient. This means that whenever anyone wants a tool or piece of equipment, they must immediately know where to go to get it and where to put it back, reducing travel wastage. Doing things this way also makes it immediately known when an item is missing.

3. Shine (Seiso)

When the workplace is dirty and disorganized, it can be hard to identify problems. That is what this step is all about making sure the work environment, whether it is an office or construction site, is clean. Everything that remained during the sorting phase is thoroughly cleaned. In this step, there will be a lot of sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, painting, labeling and other cleaning activities. But the emphasis should be placed on uncovering and eliminating the actual root causes of the uncleanliness and getting rid of them.

4. Standardize (Seiketsu)

This step is about creating standards that will ensure the cleanliness of the workplace. People are assigned roles and responsibilities of what they must do to maintain the standards. All work areas are made consistent or identical so that it is easier for workers from other areas to come in and perform the process. And with the standards in place, everyone knows what is a normal or abnormal situation, and can alert management for further action.

5. Sustain (Shitsuke)

The final step ensures that the previous steps are not a once-off event when deemed a success. Here, the steps for an ongoing audit of the 5S event are outlined, leading to the constant maintenance and refreshment of the improved workplace. It is also important to let everyone know that sticking to the 5S method is their job.

As you can see, 5S is a method that embodies the heart of what Six Sigma represents; reducing waste in a process. It can be used in any organization for any process, whether it is in an office or manufacturing plant. And once the areas of 5S performance have been identified, continuous improvement makes sure optimization is always moving with forward momentum.

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Teaching is one of the most important professions in the world. This is why, as a teacher, you should have a classroom which is a reflection of the highest teaching standards as well as the embodiment of a hard-working, safe and comfortable environment for your students to receive knowledge. How do I get there? you may ask.

5S is a tried and tested tool and part of the lean method that has been used throughout the world in a variety of process improvement settings. There are five key phases in 5S, namely sort, set in order, systematic cleaning, standardize and sustain. Here, we examine each of these phases and some examples of each within an elementary school setting.

Sort (Seiri)

Sorting is differentiation of what is necessary and what is unnecessary in order to discard anything unnecessary. In the context of lean, it requires the elimination of all unnecessary materials, tools, work in progress, machinery, documents and papers. In this case, a teacher examines their workplace to find out the essentials that are worth keeping, discarding the rest.

In our example, we look at a classroom with more desks and chairs than students as well as cluttered boards and work tables. Sort dictates that we remove any extra furniture and store or dispose of old artwork and unnecessary paperwork.

Set in Order (Seiton)

Ideally, everything in the workplace should be in its rightful place and there should be a place for everything. Each item’s place needs to be clearly demarcated and labeled, with the items then arranged in a way that encourages efficient workflow. All equipment, parts and tools should be stored close to where it will be used, so that the flow path is straightened.

After the additional chairs have been removed from our classroom, it is now possible to arrange the tables and set them in order so that spaces are allocated for different types of lessons. Setting things in order creates independence in the students by giving them a sense of space and ownership.

Systematic Cleaning (Seiso)

It is important that the workplace stays organized and tidy. As each shift ends, the work area should be cleaned and everything that has been in use returned to its allocated place. Not only does it make it easy for people to know what goes where, it also ensures that every piece of equipment is exactly where it belongs. It should be noted that maintaining cleanliness needs to be part of daily work, and not performed occasionally when the workplace gets too messy.

At the end of the school day, the tables, desks and other workspaces within the classroom are wiped and shined, boards are properly cleaned and the whole space is returned to a pristine state, ready for classes the next day.

Standardize (Seiketsu)

Work practices need to be standard and consistent. This allows everyone to focus on their individual responsibilities in the achievement of the previous three S’s.

In Seiketsu, we lay out our labeled class information, schedule, reminders, calendar and upcoming menus. We use different colors to ensure that we differentiate the different topics in order to visually manage each process.

Sustain (Shitsuke)

Once the first four S’s are established, they need to be entrenched as the new way that the classroom operates. You should keep your focus on this new way in order to avoid slipping back into the old ways. You may also think about how the new ways can be further improved.

In our classroom, weekly checks and regular updates allow us to sustain our new, well maintained workplace. Not only does this make it a wonderfully pleasant place to learn, but it also sends out a powerful message to students, faculty and parents.

Conclusion

5S is a discipline within the lean methodology which helps organizations to maintain well-organized, visual workplaces. When the learning environment is well organized, children become more independent and teachers can spend time concentrating on students instead of wasting it trying to find teaching materials.

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The 5S methodology enjoys a lot of popularity nowadays and is commonly mentioned in various contexts related to production and manufacturing. Its origins are somewhat difficult to trace, as multiple people and organizations have contributed to the ideology over time. And in the end, some companies tend to face certain difficulties when trying to implement 5S into their own workflow. Understanding what 5S is really about, and putting it to proper use, takes some time and research but once you’ve covered the groundwork, you’ll find that the methodology can work wonders for improving the productivity in your organization.

The 5S

The name of 5S comes from five S-words their original Japanese names started with S when transliterated, and modern English translations have followed that style as well.

• Sort (Seiri) this refers to ensuring that the workplace is properly structured and everything is exactly where it should be. This doesn’t only refer to the tools and materials you use in your work, but for the opposite too anything that doesn’t belong on the work floor should be regularly removed and stored away appropriately. Waste disposal also falls in this category.
• Set in order (Seiton) similar to the first point, but not quite the same, this one is concerned with ensuring that everything needed for the regular workflow is easily accessible and is always in a regular place. Reducing the time needed to seek out specific materials and tools can work wonders on ensuring that your employees don’t need to waste any unnecessary time in their tasks.
• Shine (Seiso) putting sufficient emphasis on the cleanliness and hygiene of the workplace is just as important as keeping things in order, but this aspect of workplace maintenance tends to get ignored by certain companies nowadays. It’s worth pointing out that the importance of workplace cleanliness will have different degrees of importance from one business to another, but maintaining some baseline standard is always crucial.
• Standardize (Seiketsu) when your company works in a standardized manner, your employees will spend far less time in unnecessary communication. Companies that don’t follow this principle tend to generate a lot of waste in constant repetition of the same questions, and the problems get even worse as the size of the organization grows. A large company that doesn’t follow standardized principles can quickly find itself in a situation where different departments aren’t aligned on their input/output relationships.
• Sustain (Shitsuke) building companies in a sustainable manner is becoming more and more prominent in organizational discussions these days, and for a good reason. We’ve only recently started to realize the huge amounts of waste that are generated by companies that don’t maintain a proper outlook for the future, and it’s not rare to see companies operating in a way that suits their current situation, but ultimately leads to their destruction. Or worse, they end up harming the environment around them.

How Do These Ideas Translate to Increased Productivity?

Looking at each separate point of 5S alone can make it somewhat difficult to figure out how each of them will work towards realizing great improvements in the productivity of your company. Sure, the basic benefit of each point is obvious, but what most leaders miss when considering the potential implications of 5S is how it all comes together when the entire system is applied correctly.

The point of 5S are grouped together for a reason. Each of them adds a piece to the puzzle, but alone they won’t come anywhere close to the potential that can be realized with the methodology. And this is the exact point of failure for many company leaders which you must strive to avoid if you’re going to implement 5S in your organization, you have to make sure that the methodology is followed down to the last point, and maintain that status quo for a good while until the situation in your company has stabilized.

Conclusion

5S can do a lot for a modern organization, and the benefits of the methodology are huge. However, it’s crucial that the separate principles are applied together in a sensible manner, and that the organization pays sufficient attention to each separate point during the implementation of the project. Otherwise, implementing each point on its own will bring you diminishing returns and will most likely even discourage you from moving forward with the project.

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