Applying Lean methodologies – how can 5S improve your processes?
by Angela Cromack
How much of your day do you feel like you are constantly doing things but not achieving anything? We can all think of examples of where we seem to be wasting our time – sitting in road works on the way to work, filling in a report that no-one reads – but after attending a course on Applying Lean Methodologies from Process Management International (PMI) I learnt several tools on how to examine and change your processes to improve them. Whether it be putting work through the Creative Department or simply cooking dinner!
The 5S Programme in detail…
Using the PMI Process Improvement Cycle the course looks at existing processes that you may do on a daily basis and uses Lean tools to examine and eliminate waste within the process to improve it and in terms of business make it more cost effective. One such tool is using a 5S programme to organise your work space making whichever process you are doing as easy and as efficient as possible. For example how many times have you taken a message at home or at work and spent a great deal of time looking for a pen interrupting yourself and the other person for longer than necessary? By applying a 5S programme you will actually make sure you have everything you need, when you need it by looking at the following stages; Sort, Straighten, Sweep, Standardise and Sustain.
In practise…
For this we will look at the 5 stages in terms of your place of work but as we go through I am sure you will be able to see places where it can be used at home as well! The first stage effectively involves you sorting through what is around you and sorting it according to what is needed right now and what is not. For instance in terms of my desk right now I can see lots of pens (for which there is one that I am using right now) but also examples of DM packs that I haven’t looked at for a while! So for this stage you go through everything in and around your desk and keep everything that you need on a daily basis closest to you, things that you need now and again further away (maybe in your desk drawers or in a filing cabinet) and destroy or get rid of the things you don’t need at all. That way you will always have everything you need closest to you and be able to find the things that you need less often. However, for many people the idea of sorting through what they do and don’t need can be difficult as many of us feel the need to keep hold of things ‘just in case’ so for these items a red tag system is used, which involves putting all the items that you would like to keep somewhere in the office but labelling them with a date that they are placed there and a date at when they will either be destroyed or put into storage if they haven’t been used by then. This as well as clearing your desk area of any unwanted items also always you to recognise what you really do need!
The second stage of the process involves straightening. Giving everything a designated place, making sure it is clearly labelled and arranged so that they are easy to find and use. This idea is often illustrated in garages and manufacturing environments where tools are kept on boards that are either drawn around or have specific holders that will only fit one particular tool making it easy to see where the tools belong and sense check people trying to put them back in the wrong place. However in an office environment this doesn’t mean putting marks around your desk for particular items but it could involve putting a label on the spine of each book that belong in a series and making the labels appear diagonally across the spines so that you can see at a glance what order they should appear in and when one is missing!
Sweeping, the third stage, refers to cleaning your work space which should be a lot easier now there are less items to clean around! While the next stage in the process, Standardisation refers to looking at similar workspaces for people that do similar processes and making them the same as possible. However it is worth noting here that you shouldn’t take things too far people should still be able to work comfortably, so for example don’t move the mouse to the right hand side of the keyboard for everyone even if you think it is quicker to use that way as you may have people that are left handed – this may seem like common sense but it can happen! This stage is more about making sure that if your colleague is out of the office for whatever reason their work is kept in a similar place so that you can find it easily, avoiding delays and embarrassment, by having to admit you can’t find it or calling a colleague when they are on holiday!
The final and probably the most important in terms of process improvement is Sustain. This stage is all about sharing the information with colleagues and getting it applied throughout the company at all levels. And just as importantly introducing it to new employees when they start as often people bring their desk habits with them, that way once everyone is doing it and reviewing the firt three stages on a regular basis 5S can make a real difference to your business and become part of the company culture.
The future…
Once identified these steps are common sense but they are a great way of introducing Lean methodology and Lean thinking to your company as they can be done quickly and they show results straight away – as believe me once you carry out the 5S programme in your workplace you will be amazed at how little you need to complete your work on a daily basis!
To work with a marketing company that believes in process improvement… call us on 0161 872 1361 or click here.
Tags: 5S Programme, Lean Methodologies, PMI Process Improvement Cycle, Process Improvement, Sort, Standarisation, Straighten, Sustainability, Sweep
