Housekeeping - Clean-Up

Lean Manufacturing calls the housekeeping process “The 5S Process”.  It’s a great place to start. 5S is not a fad, a flavour of the month, but a part of daily life.  “Fads” are normally focused solely on the shop floor activities with office staff “looking on”.  This will be a complete change of system and you need to distinguish this process change from previous management improvement initiatives, so start it in the offices.  While you are taking your first look at the offices reflect on their “visual management” aspects.  Ask a member of staff to visit another department or section and find a file or drawing that should be commonly shared information.  For example, get a Finance person to go to the Engineering records section and find a popular drawing and ask an Engineer to show you where Purchasing keep their Supplier contact address file.  You may ask, “Why is this important”?  If you want teamwork and a degree of flexibility then you must create a culture that promotes it.  Staff and management must be able to know where to obtain reference material so it should be clearly marked.  If it is restricted then it should still be identified but marked restricted.  

The Benefits of 5S

• It creates clean, pleasant, and safe working environments.  Reduces Industrial Accidents.
• It revitalises the workplace and greatly improves morale and motivation. 
• It minimises the need to search for tools etc. thereby reducing frustration and makes jobs easier.
• It can encourage us to concentrate on doing one job at a time.
• It can reduce strenuous work, and free up space.
• It can improve quality standards.

SORT  (Clear by red tagging)  

• Separate out all that is unnecessary and eliminate it.
• Start with a RED TAG CAMPAIGN.
• Select area and armed with handfuls of red tags place them on items that appear unnecessary.
• Rule of thumb - tag anything that will not be used within the next 30 days.
• Rule of thumb - if in doubt tag it. (Later person must demonstrate the need to keep it)
• Rule of thumb - if required at some point in the future, move to a store location.
• Decide the maximum number of any type of item to be retained.
• Question - why did we order so much more than we needed.

          (Office Example)

• Typical desk - items placed in drawers indiscriminately - pencils, pens, erasers, paper clips, business cards etc.  How many pens do you need?  You probably only write with one hand!
• Stationary store - How many locations - is there a central store for the plant, one for each department, one for each section within the department, and one for each individual.  How many stores do you want? You probably can only write on one piece of paper at a time!
• Files - How many files are open on the desk.  You can probably only read or write to one file at a time!
• Reference data - How much do you keep - If you needed to find information, do you know where to locate it?  You probably can’t, so you recreate data.

STRAIGHTEN  (Get Organised)

• Once everything has been sorted and you are left with only the correct number of necessary items, it is important to realise that the needed items can be of no use if they are stored too far from the workplace or located in a place where they cannot be found.
• Classify items by use and arrange them accordingly to minimise search time and effort.
• Each item must have a designated address (location), name (easily identifiable position) and volume (maximum number of that item).
• Examples: - Floor space for container of WIP must be identified by painting rectangles on floor. (If too much then it becomes obvious) Walls can be numbered such as wall A-1 and wall B-2 etc. Silhouettes of tools can be painted on the surface where they are to be stored.   Diagonal stripes on lever arch files show if one is misplaced.

          (Office Example)

•   People often pile their desks with “in-progress” files and work papers and use this as an informal “visual control”.  When items are filed away this visual control is lost.  I know I filed it, but where?

• IT IS ESSENTIAL TO SET-UP A SYSTEM THAT WILL ENABLE EACH PERSON TO MAINTAIN CONTROL WITHOUT RESORT TO EMPLOYING THE VISUAL CLUTTER APPROACH.

SWEEP  (Clean it)

• Decide what should be cleaned.
• Decide how often it should be cleaned and by whom.
• Develop cleaning methods.
• While cleaning the person has the chance to notice any problems or machine faults that are developing.

STANDARDISE  (Set Standards)  

• Establish standards to be regularly applied to the workplace.
• Decide common standards to be used throughout the plant - e.g.

Colour coding: WIP containers; Scrap & Rework containers etc.
Colour code stationary cabinets.
Establish methods of paperwork identification.
Identification of audit/inspection areas.
Identification of storage areas.
Establish common PC file handling procedures.
Housekeeping audit.

• Strong forces at the workplace try to push conditions back to their previous state so build a system to assure continuity of 5S program.

SUSTAIN (Discipline)  

• 5S will only work if everyone is prepared to apply self-discipline.
• The essence of 5S is to follow what has been agreed upon.
• Appraisal of the progress can be: - Self Evaluation; Evaluation by a superior; Competition among work groups