Lessons from the Road: Sustaining Your 5S Efforts
My 2nd installment of Lessons from the Road, my new column for Industry Week is now available.
This month the topic is Sustaining Your 5S Efforts. One of my early columns for Assembly Magazine titled Planning 5S? First Know Why! 5 years later, it’s still one of the most popular pages on the website. It seems simple, 5S, yet people struggle with it mightily.
The summary points from the column are:
1. Communicate the purpose
2. Audit at the leadership level
3. Periodically change your audits
4. During a crisis, double your audits
5. Escalate problems
6. Eliminate doors and drawers
Please check out the entire column here, and leave your comments on this post.
Jamie, great article and practical advice on how to sustain 5S. I liked how you mentioned that many people mention the benefits of 5S for their reason for doing it instead of using 5S to truly understand their workplace. I also find that when people tell me they can’t seem to “Sustain†5S, I mention that they may want to go back to the fourth S – “Standardize†and see if they have a standard and are they actually following it.
With your permission, I would like to invite people to participate in the largest, most comprehensive 5S Benchmarking Survey ever attempted. It has 40 questions and will take about 20-30 minutes to complete. Participants can receive a customized report for helping out. To learn more please go to http://bit.ly/iAq7pH
Jamie, great article and practical advice on how to sustain 5S. I liked how you mentioned that many people mention the benefits of 5S for their reason for doing it instead of using 5S to truly understand their workplace. I also find that when people tell me they can’t seem to “Sustain†5S, I mention that they may want to go back to the fourth S – “Standardize†and see if they have a standard and are they actually following it.
With your permission, I would like to invite people to participate in the largest, most comprehensive 5S Benchmarking Survey ever attempted. It has 40 questions and will take about 20-30 minutes to complete. Participants can receive a customized report for helping out. To learn more please go to http://bit.ly/iAq7pH
Jamie, great article and practical advice on how to sustain 5S. I liked how you mentioned that many people mention the benefits of 5S for their reason for doing it instead of using 5S to truly understand their workplace. I also find that when people tell me they can’t seem to “Sustain†5S, I mention that they may want to go back to the fourth S – “Standardize†and see if they have a standard and are they actually following it.
With your permission, I would like to invite people to participate in the largest, most comprehensive 5S Benchmarking Survey ever attempted. It has 40 questions and will take about 20-30 minutes to complete. Participants can receive a customized report for helping out. To learn more please go to http://bit.ly/iAq7pH
Jamie, as mentioned and despite that I see that these are lessons from the road, I feel that 4 out of the 6 are aimed at audits and escalation.
They give the impression (or more) that it’s about compliance. They do not address the root cause.
Of course, most if not all 5S approaches include this as part of sustain, but I think that if we are true to Lean thinking we should know that we do not seek compliance. Instead we should ask outselves the ‘why’ question.
Where does not intrinsic motivation come from, why does someone feel true ownership, do they understand their purpose in the system and the role they play within it?
Just some thoughts, but maybe the lessons from the road should not be audit, audit again and escalate, but should be more in the direction of involve, discover purpose with the team, allow people to own it and see it as a means to better fulfill purpose, to be able to manage and to get better in fulflling purpose, to take pride, etc.
Jamie, as mentioned and despite that I see that these are lessons from the road, I feel that 4 out of the 6 are aimed at audits and escalation.
They give the impression (or more) that it’s about compliance. They do not address the root cause.
Of course, most if not all 5S approaches include this as part of sustain, but I think that if we are true to Lean thinking we should know that we do not seek compliance. Instead we should ask outselves the ‘why’ question.
Where does not intrinsic motivation come from, why does someone feel true ownership, do they understand their purpose in the system and the role they play within it?
Just some thoughts, but maybe the lessons from the road should not be audit, audit again and escalate, but should be more in the direction of involve, discover purpose with the team, allow people to own it and see it as a means to better fulfill purpose, to be able to manage and to get better in fulflling purpose, to take pride, etc.
Jamie, as mentioned and despite that I see that these are lessons from the road, I feel that 4 out of the 6 are aimed at audits and escalation.
They give the impression (or more) that it’s about compliance. They do not address the root cause.
Of course, most if not all 5S approaches include this as part of sustain, but I think that if we are true to Lean thinking we should know that we do not seek compliance. Instead we should ask outselves the ‘why’ question.
Where does not intrinsic motivation come from, why does someone feel true ownership, do they understand their purpose in the system and the role they play within it?
Just some thoughts, but maybe the lessons from the road should not be audit, audit again and escalate, but should be more in the direction of involve, discover purpose with the team, allow people to own it and see it as a means to better fulfill purpose, to be able to manage and to get better in fulflling purpose, to take pride, etc.
I had a discussion with a colleague earlier today which touched on Rob’s comments.
We were specifically debating about a Lean Engagement we are working on together. As with most engagements, results are required quickly.
One side of the thinking ran along the lines of, short term decisions and prescriptive direction are not aligned to Lean Thinking period; we must be willing to take long term actions and coach rather than be prescribe.
The counter thinking was that in order to inspire people’s creativity to be used rather than merely discussed there must be enough order and control within the organisation to free up both time to implement and sufficient evidence of the current problems. Thus, in the short term control may exercised via very structured systems with emphasis on compliance as long as there are frequent communications that controlled experiments can be done after demonstration of compliance has been shown.
Which position has the most merit?
I had a discussion with a colleague earlier today which touched on Rob’s comments.
We were specifically debating about a Lean Engagement we are working on together. As with most engagements, results are required quickly.
One side of the thinking ran along the lines of, short term decisions and prescriptive direction are not aligned to Lean Thinking period; we must be willing to take long term actions and coach rather than be prescribe.
The counter thinking was that in order to inspire people’s creativity to be used rather than merely discussed there must be enough order and control within the organisation to free up both time to implement and sufficient evidence of the current problems. Thus, in the short term control may exercised via very structured systems with emphasis on compliance as long as there are frequent communications that controlled experiments can be done after demonstration of compliance has been shown.
Which position has the most merit?
I had a discussion with a colleague earlier today which touched on Rob’s comments.
We were specifically debating about a Lean Engagement we are working on together. As with most engagements, results are required quickly.
One side of the thinking ran along the lines of, short term decisions and prescriptive direction are not aligned to Lean Thinking period; we must be willing to take long term actions and coach rather than be prescribe.
The counter thinking was that in order to inspire people’s creativity to be used rather than merely discussed there must be enough order and control within the organisation to free up both time to implement and sufficient evidence of the current problems. Thus, in the short term control may exercised via very structured systems with emphasis on compliance as long as there are frequent communications that controlled experiments can be done after demonstration of compliance has been shown.
Which position has the most merit?
[…] 5S Results using Process Confirmation or purely on Principle? Posted on May 19, 2011 by leanconsultant I just posted the comments below on Jamie Flinchbaugh’s blog about 5S. His blog is excellent check it out: http:http://jflinchdev.wpengine.com/2011/05/lessons-from-the-road-sustaining-your-5s-efforts/comment-page-1/… […]
[…] 5S Results using Process Confirmation or purely on Principle? Posted on May 19, 2011 by leanconsultant I just posted the comments below on Jamie Flinchbaugh’s blog about 5S. His blog is excellent check it out: http://jamieflinchbaugh.com/2011/05/lessons-from-the-road-sustaining-your-5s-efforts/comment-page-1/… […]
[…] 5S Results using Process Confirmation or purely on Principle? Posted on May 19, 2011 by leanconsultant I just posted the comments below on Jamie Flinchbaugh’s blog about 5S. His blog is excellent check it out: http://jamieflinchbaugh.com/2011/05/lessons-from-the-road-sustaining-your-5s-efforts/comment-page-1/… […]
Rob, there is no question that these do not solve the root cause. However, the root cause would be people not caring about 5S more than everything else that might come up. However, that’s not even the goal.
I think any 5S effort attempts to successfully involve, discover purpose (one of my points), and create ownership. But the evidence OVERWHELMING indicates that this is not enough to create sustainability.
Audit should never be the goal – but it works, when done with the right mindset. Audits are not about beating people with an “accountability stick.” It’s about uncovering what’s getting in the way of doing the right thing. Those engaged employees you talk about can’t remove every barrier. A successful audit should be surfacing those barriers.
Trust me, it pains me to recommend anything close to audits. But in the right situation, it works.
Rob, there is no question that these do not solve the root cause. However, the root cause would be people not caring about 5S more than everything else that might come up. However, that’s not even the goal.
I think any 5S effort attempts to successfully involve, discover purpose (one of my points), and create ownership. But the evidence OVERWHELMING indicates that this is not enough to create sustainability.
Audit should never be the goal – but it works, when done with the right mindset. Audits are not about beating people with an “accountability stick.” It’s about uncovering what’s getting in the way of doing the right thing. Those engaged employees you talk about can’t remove every barrier. A successful audit should be surfacing those barriers.
Trust me, it pains me to recommend anything close to audits. But in the right situation, it works.
Rob, there is no question that these do not solve the root cause. However, the root cause would be people not caring about 5S more than everything else that might come up. However, that’s not even the goal.
I think any 5S effort attempts to successfully involve, discover purpose (one of my points), and create ownership. But the evidence OVERWHELMING indicates that this is not enough to create sustainability.
Audit should never be the goal – but it works, when done with the right mindset. Audits are not about beating people with an “accountability stick.” It’s about uncovering what’s getting in the way of doing the right thing. Those engaged employees you talk about can’t remove every barrier. A successful audit should be surfacing those barriers.
Trust me, it pains me to recommend anything close to audits. But in the right situation, it works.