I usually share with people that 5S is a countermeasure. It solves the problem of a workplace having no standard or stability from which to improve. This means that 5S is not the goal but merely a starting point for improvement. You need 5S for real improvement can take hold. 5S is short for five activities that start with the letter “S.” Those activities are:

1. Sort - to sort through and sort out what is needed from not needed.
2. Set-in-Order - having a place for everything and ensuring everything is in its place.
3. Shine - bringing cleaning up to a standard from which you can observe and root cause problems before they start.
4. Standardize - Making sure you standardize the first 3 S’s: ensuring each S is done every day for consistent results.
5. Sustain - Finding ways to perform the routine of doing 5S to create a habit of being a champion of 5S practitioner whether you are–home or work.

I also share that there are really eight steps to the 5S system. The first three steps are preparation steps:

1. Introduce the 5S system to the team
2. Create a vision with the team
3. Performing a workplace scan and diagnostic

The reason there is a gray box around the first two steps is that one meeting can cover these activities comfortably. The introduction can be done using a video or through discussions led by a 5S Champion.

Figure 1 – One of many “5S for Safety” Visuals

Introduce the 5S system to the team

As a champion of 5S, consider yourself a superhero. The logo you wear on your chest has the number 5 on top of a letter S. And just like a symbol of hope, your journey of improving never ends. Your challenge is to get everyone to own the 5S system. It should be employee owned and management supported. It bears repeating; the challenge is to get employees to own the system. When this happens, you stand a fighting chance of achieving the fifth S–which is sustainability - using the 5S system.

Figure 2 – The 5S Logo used for 5S Implementations.

What are we sustaining? This is a brilliant question. The answer is simply a standard. A standard is a consistent way of doing things… doing things the best way we know of today. Having a standard is the key to improvement. We can standardize a workplace itself, demonstrating that we can keep it looking how we want it to look. We can also standardize a sequence of work. Showing that work can be performed consistently as per our defined expectations. Finally, we can standardize our improvement processes. The way you would accomplish 5S can be standardized. What everyone must now know is that until there is a standard, there can be no improvement. The 5S system is currently the world’s best way of creating standards in a workplace. The logo you proudly wear on your chest is well deserved if you can create and sustain the standards that allow for improvement to take hold.

During my consulting career, I remember going to a company that was obviously not 5S’d. When I asked them, “have you heard about 5S?” They shared they were experts. They have implemented 5S at least five times. They must have been joking. The hardest part of 5S is the sustained effort. I get why they think they have done 5S enough times to understand it, but have they done it right with the right mindset? The answer is in the results–no.

Create a vision with the team

Creating a vision with the team is usually the first misstep in implementing 5S. The vision is one of the simplest things to create. To do this, you get the team together and select a few categories to improve. Then ask the team to describe the current condition and target condition. Write exactly what they say on the whiteboard. Do not change the language from spoken words to written language on a whiteboard. Use exactly what they say. The current condition answers the question, how are things working today? The desired condition answers the question, how would you like things to work?

Figure 3 –Safety Vision example from Gerdau Ameristeel (2003)

Remember this is the first meeting regarding 5S. You have introduced it and you are asking them to dream about a better future. Dream about what their workplace or job site can and should look like. Let them dream about how information should come to them. Dream about a better world where they are in control of their respective business.

This is a dangerous stage in the game. Management must support 5S regardless of the hardships and training cost they will incur. Management must think long-term about the benefits and incur some short-term pain. Most leaders feel that production suffers during implementing 5S. This is because they are counting the hours away from the value-added portion of people’s work. They are counting the lack-of-production hours. Their starting point was not going to the place where work is done–the job site, the area, the construction location and doing something unique–observing. Not just observing but observing deeply what is happening and comparing that to what should be happening. That is the starting point. 5S training is a terrific way to enable everyone to do a better job by allowing them to list their dissatisfaction with how things are currently going. This is important. Understanding that dissatisfaction with the status quo is the trigger to starting the standard-creation process is vital.

As a 5S Champion, you are trying to create a gap for them. You are trying to create a sense of unhappiness about the current condition. This is the purpose of showing them pictures and videos of what a job site can look like. To make it even more relevant, show them what their company has done in other locations or other zones within the same building or project site. You must make sure people come out of this meeting with an unhappiness about the status quo. This is where improvement happens.

Figure 4 - Capturing the unhappiness at Parsons Fab Shop (2013)

When we think of the 5S System, we need to think about all the categories. Not just efficiency and flow and not just safety. This is a system to improve everything and bring it up to standard. The team and leadership get input into what the standard should look like. The standard exists for the team, their suppliers and is designed with the customer in mind. Meeting production obligations to customers is of utmost importance. The correct design of the fabrication shop–in this case–enables everyone to achieve this by producing to takt time. Takt time is not complicated to understand. It is translating the customer demand into operational language. For example, if we need to produce 160 assemblies today, and we work 8 hours, this means that we need to produce twenty per hour. That means we need to produce one assembly every 3 minutes. Three minutes is our takt time. The time we get it done is our cycle time. So, if we have a cycle time of 4 minutes… we either do overtime or we will be late. Our factory layout, materials placement, and employee skills are critical to making and keeping these kinds of promises to our customers.

Our goal is to create a complete system that is stable, repeatable, and standardized. We all need to be thinking about continuous improvement each day. We get to this understanding by seeing the benefits of 5S. We see the benefits by practicing the activities each day. Starting the day off where our area is in standard means we have a much better chance of predicting what we can accomplish. The 5S Champion must force each of the 5S activities to happen until they become a habit. Then, after doing each of the 5S’s, the learner understands the importance of the system. It is not long before each of the first 5Ss is practiced, and everyone sees the benefit.

Perform a workplace scan and diagnostic

You might ask yourself; how do I capture the improvement? One great way is through pictures and videos. Another is through a workplace scan and diagnostic. The diagnostic is a simple audit. By answering the questions, it gives a score out of one hundred points. When I started doing this in manufacturing back in 2003, I used to think this score would be in 30 to 40 points out of one hundred. The diagnostic is designed so that you can show improvement through increasing your score. To this day, I have not come across an area that has scored over seventeen points. The average is a solid six out of one hundred. Do not be discouraged. You get to improve your score quickly by educating the team on 5S. Find any 5S scorecard on the internet and get started. As the champion, you want to create the dream and help each team member arrive there together. You will guide them towards excellence but keep them grounded. After 10 years of routinely doing 5S, you find that going back to the basics is just as important as it was on day one. One deliverable of these preparatory steps can be a communication board. On a job site you can use a wall in your project room or QR codes - linked to video-taped to pillars in a work area.

Figure 5 - A 5S Communication Board to Encourage Engagement

Conclusion:

Regardless of the industry in which you are implementing the 5S system, it is worth preparing your team by performing these first three steps:

1) Introduce the 5S system to the team
2) Create a vision with the team
3) Perform a workplace scan and diagnostic

After the team understands why you are doing 5S, and how you are going to do 5S, they realize it is their responsibility to implement the system. They will understand how people, materials, equipment, information, and tools move in and out of the area. They will have visualized a better way of doing things by focusing on a future where things flow in and out of the area. They are being prepared for major improvements. You have taken hundreds of before pictures, and you have given them a score out of one hundred percent. You are now ready to perform each of the 5S activities. Perry will be your teacher and explain how this works in construction. I encourage you to adopt Perry’s method and terminology for the construction industry. Since it differs from other industries, it requires a customized approach to achieve the standards that form the basis for improvement to take hold.