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The venerable 5S system has been in use for several years now and the results have been impressive for those who integrated it into their company culture. In my book Lessons to be Learned Just in Time, I chronicled some of my experiences with Lean Manufacturing that transformed a manufacturing facility of the brink of insolvency, to the best run plant in a major corporation in a matter of months. I also chronicled the history of Lean which sheds much light on how to become a world class practitioner. Unbeknownst to me at the time, we were using the building blocks in the 5S system and other methodologies not included in the system.

I have always thought that the 5S system was a good one. It encapsulates philosophically the works of Frederick Taylor, Frank Gilbreth, Henry Ford, Walter Shewhart, W. Edwards Deming and Shigeo Shingo among others. The Ford CANDO program (Cleaning up, Arranging, Neatness, Discipline, Ongoing Improvement), which builds on the work of Taylor and Gilbreth seems to have been a precursor of 5S.

Sometimes I believe that it is forgotten that LEAN is a philosophy, not a set of increasingly complicated tools. I am alarmed at the number of companies that make the error of equating the usage of the process improvement tools themselves and certifications, with results such as increasing profitability by lowering costs, increasing thruput, minimizing inventory investment, increasing productivity and quality. Unless these indicators are improving tremendously, you are probably busy collecting data instead of engaging in Lean.

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While traditional methods have value, innovation advances process improvement.

Perhaps Richard Buckminster Fuller said it best:

"I am enthusiastic over humanity's extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuity. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday's fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem."

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This article will address the "missing" elements of the 5S system. 5S became a pillar of the Toyota Production System (TPS) by Taiichi Ohno and others such as my mentor Shigeo Shingo.

The purpose of the TPS is to eliminate waste in all forms including:

o Overproduction - producing more than, faster than or sooner than is required

o Waiting - idle time that could be used productively

o Transporting - unnecessary transport of parts or materials

o Inappropriate processing - operations that add no value from the customer's perspective

o Unnecessary inventory - exceeding one-piece flow

o Unnecessary/excess motion - any movement by people or equipment that does not add value

o Defects - rework, repair or waste in all forms.

Let's not limit ourselves to thinking this list of forms of waste is all inclusive. For example, a wasteful product design which contains more costly parts than necessary, more parts than necessary, has features that do not add value, and is not designed for ease of manufacturing contributes to waste. Waste can manifest itself in many forms including: lack of manpower flexibility, materials, needlessly tight tolerances, machinery, energy, bottlenecks, poor scheduling, less than optimal thruput (the rate at which sales dollars become profits), frequent engineering changes and obsolescence, to name a few.

You can also approach process and product improvement by ADDING value and eliminating non value added features and processes. Often adding value also results in lowering costs.

The design of the product largely determines the quality levels that can be achieved. Achieving a level of quality in respect to making parts exactly to the drawing is laudable. However, does the product achieve its intended purpose? For example if you built an automobile perfectly to specifications but its transmission routinely fails at 50,000 miles, is it a quality product?

Furthermore, the design has impact on manufacturing costs, material costs. We must not accept product designs to be set in stone, just as we cannot view quality, productivity and costs as fixed.

The New 8S System for
Lean Manufacturing

By Jim Cammarano, APC, CMM, MBA
President, Hawthorne Management Consulting
president@manufacturing-consulting.com
858-449-6825
www.manufacturing-consulting.com

Copyright 2010 by Jim Cammarano. All rights reserved.
Duplication or distribution by any means is expressly prohibited
without the expressed written permission of the author

The 5S system consisted of:
           1) Sort
           2) Simplify
           3) Shine, Spic and Span (Housekeeping)
           4) Standardize
           5) Sustain (Progress)

In the attempt to translate the Japanese words into five English words beginning with "S", there may have been some key elements lost in translation.

A review of the 5S system may shed light on my observations.

Seiri: Sorting: Removing unnecessary materials, machinery and tools from the workplace, promotes greater thruput, productivity and safety. It is not hard to conceive how a cluttered, unorganized workplace would lead to wasted time finding tools or presenting safety hazards. Clutter also obscures what is really happening in the plant. In my book Lessons to be Learned Just in Time, I talk about a plant that had so much work in process that the machinery and the workers themselves were hidden. We had to sort the work in process needed from the excess and unnecessary.

Seiton: I have seen this translated into English as "Set in Order" meaning having a place for everything and having everything in its most effective place. While this no doubt contributes to more efficient and effective operations, I personally prefer "Simplify". The old saying "simplicity is genius" applies. Simplifying pertains to everything in and associated with the process. For example, it applies to the product design itself. A design with fewer parts performing the same functionality is inherently more reliable. A process that has fewer operations is generally less costly and more efficient than one with more operations.

Seiso: Shine or Spic and Span: refers to the need to keep the plant clean. The work area is always clean and in a state of readiness. Cleanliness has to become part of the process, not something done when time permits or when the facility becomes unbearably messy.

For example, clean equipment promotes efficiency and quality. If a machine is leaking oil, it could make the product unusable or make it necessary to add a cleaning operation. It is also a sign that the machine itself could require a repair that would prolong its useful life. If a machine is clean, when an oil leak appears it will be highly visible promoting timely servicing or repairs.

A clean work environment additionally, raises the bar on the professionalism of the employees. A newly painted, clean and uncluttered plant helps set the tone for the improvements to come.

Seiketsu: Standardizing: This means consistency. Once work instructions are implemented, they are followed to the "t" until they are updated. It is not unusual for me to find a work area where many individuals are performing the same task differently. Standardizing means to implement the best practices in the organization. If plant "A" finds a better way to make ball bearings, then their methods should be implemented in plant "B". Standardization does not to mean that the process becomes stagnant. It means we will all follow the "better way" until an even better way is determined, then the new way will become standard practice. This can be applied to machinery, materials, methodology, workflow, and product design and many other areas as well. Again, nothing should imply that standardization should promote stagnation. Always be moving forward on a minute to minute basis.

Shitsuke: Sustaining: This means always maintain the highest standards of excellence. Do not permit the gradual creep of errors or inefficiencies, or prior methods to come back into practice. If you had no quality defects in week 1, and you have several in week 4, something has gone wrong. and must be remedied. If you "accidently" make a handful of superior razor blades out of a batch of 100,000 that means there is already the hidden capacity to make them all to the higher level of quality. Find out why and re-engineer your process so it becomes the norm.

Inconsistency in anything is to be avoided. Determine the root causes of variability and eliminate them from your operations. Measure continuously what is important so you can make process improvements and to make course corrections as rapidly as possible. For example, if you only measure your thruput at the end of the month and things did not go well, you wasted a month. If you measure it continuously, you have the opportunity to make an adjustment immediately.

Monitor the process to ensure compliance with the "standard" in place, with the understanding that it too, will be replaced by a better one. Sustain IMPROVEMENT!

While these are no are doubt key elements of changing from a legacy manufacturing process to a lean process or practicing Continuous Process Improvement (CPI), there are other continuous process improvement methods which are equally as important to your success which are missing from the 5S system. Those three elements are: safety, a systematic approach and synchronization.

SAFETY
The sixth S that I proposed over ten years ago, is safety. It has been accepted gradually. I would place SAFETY as the place to start a lean manufacturing process. While sorting, simplifying and cleaning up a manufacturing plant contribute to safety, they can fall short in achieving this objective. Maslow's theory makes the point that people need to feel safe in order to build a more effective and efficient outcome.

A person who knows their workplace is safe can reduce concentration on the basics and expend their mental capacity on resolving workplace problems that sap thruput.

A first rate safety program will greatly reduce or entirely eliminate workplace accidents. It is not unusual to find fire exits or aisles blocked, power cords underfoot, unsafe machinery or operating practices being used and the like. Workplace accidents are not the only things to be eliminated. Where accidents exist, there will be a number of near misses that need to be eliminated as well.

Safety also extends outside of the building into the parking lot. Does the parking lot have sufficient lighting? Is the parking lot free of ice and snow in the winter?

The formation of a safety committee with a representative from each area is a good start. The development of safety checklists, metrics and safety corrective action reporting and tracking are all essential activities. The initial meetings may be long and that is to be expected. Brief daily meetings with a published agenda will keep the lines of communication open. Meeting minutes must be published promptly and action items assigned, tracked, and reported on. Safety issues must be given high priority. These activities will convey the concern management has for the safety of their employees. It also has the capacity to save the company from lost labor hours due to injuries or worse.

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Employees must also be empowered to take immediate corrective action for safety issues. If an unsafe condition exists, employees must be able to act without several layers of managerial intervention which in effect would prolong the term of the unsafe condition. Encourage creative thinking in problem solving activities.

SYSTEMATIC
The seventh S, I propose is "Systematic". In the beginning of a process improvement project, you may be able to find and pick "the hanging fruit" easily. No matter where you look, process improvements are found. Once the obvious sources of waste have been identified and resolved to a certain level, a general malaise can overcome the organization.

You may hear terms such as "diminishing returns" or that is "as good as it gets." That is where a Systematic approach comes into play. Everything has to be examined on a predetermined, periodic basis, not just those that have obvious impact. Tradition can easily replace innovation. A continuous process improvement (CPI) program has to be adopted, practiced until it is ingrained into the culture deeply, until it becomes like a reflex action. Mistakes or accidental discovery of waste have to be carefully examined to mine out the golden opportunities that were hidden. The slogan on the plant wall should be "find waste" because that is the challenging part, eliminating it can be far easier.

Kaizen is often touted, but like many ideas it is an incomplete solution. It may promote a temporary acceleration of process improvement. However, the momentum can be easily lost and the status quo returns quickly, as ideas are forgotten and the implementation is delayed or worse yet never takes place.

Perhaps the most valuable tool is to continuously question the standard practices in place. Asking "WHY" several times often identifies the root causes and uncovers the real issues which were obscured.

A systematic approach ensures continuous improvement, a random approach or temporary one does not.

SYNCRONIZATION
The eighth S, I propose is Synchronization. Synchronization has always been at the heart of Lean manufacturing. Timing is everything. "Just in Time" actually conveys this concept better than Lean Manufacturing. Materials should arrive, just in time to be consumed; operations that flow continuously, promote an efficient and effective process with greater thruput. Products should flow from materials to the customer without being stored on a shelf. Whatever production is produced today should be shipped today. Customer orders taken today should be able to be produced and shipped the same day. The process should be a continuous flow, without a buildup of work in process between operations or a buildup of finished goods. Synchronization is a key concept missing from the 5S system. Installing conveyers may appear to be the perfect way to make continuous flow, however, questioning the need for conveyors, will reveal other possible solutions.

Conclusion
Tradition can never replace innovation. Innovation tends to build on tradition. However, change in of itself is not the goal, we need to change for the better through the continuous reduction of waste, removing non value added operations from the process and adding value for the customer.

The New 8S System:

1) Sort
2) Simplify
3) Shine, Spic & Span
   (Housekeeping)
4) Standardize
5) Sustain (Progress)
6) Safety
7) Systematic
8) Synchronization