A Quality Improvement Plan THE FIVE S’s By: David Black Title Page

Today’s Agenda Define Five S’s as a quality tool Show how the Five S’s can benefit a company Explanation of each of the Five S’s Topics of the day

Today’s Agenda (cont.) What makes the Five S’s work United Electric’s use of the Five S’s Class Exercise Topics of the day

Definition of the Five S’s The Five S practice is a technique used to establish and maintain a quality environment in a company by improving its’ organization. Through the Five S’s a company’s organization practices are greatly enhanced. The plan involves a five step program which is executed in order(seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, shitsuke). The plan can take from anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to complete. However once all the steps of the plan are completed, their still has to be continuous improvement on the part of the company. As this is the only way in which true quality is achieved

How can this tool benefit a company? Improves efficiency of workplace Improves overall appearance of company Improves self-organization Efficiency is improved in a number of ways: Quicker production times – The more organized a company is in respect to where needed items for the job are the quicker the job will get done. 2)Eliminates waste – If less money is spent on items which are not needed in the near future, more money can be devoted to essential items needed for the company presently and to the overall improvement of the company Improves overall appearance of company: Organization is a very important part of the Five S’s. Everything has its’ place. This allows for the employees to easily access what they need. eg. Color coating different parts of the line according to their function. 2)Cleanliness is a part of the Five S’s which asks for all employees of the company to keep the building clean. This allows items to be easily separated from those which pose no use. eg. As the japanese say a clean environment is a happy environment. Improves self organization: 1)When employees are introduced to the Five S’s they might not be too acceptant of these new practices. This is because they usually tend to break their old habits. How is this done? 2)This plan introduces to the company a more refined way of dealing with organization, neatness, and cleaning. But in order to break bad habits new ones have to be introduced. This is accomplished through the standardization and discipline aspects of this plan. These two parts of the plan make the organization,neatness, and cleaning aspects a part of the employees daily duties.

The Name Stands for Five Japanese Words Seiri Seiton Seiso Seiketsu Shitsuke Identify the Five S’s to the class

SEIRI In English seiri stands for “Organization”. •So what does organization really mean for a company? Further explanation on next slide

Definition of Organization Organization means keeping all the necessary things needed for a job separate from the unnecessary. There were times when the supply of goods was not as good as it is now. Companies were not known to have just a couple of suppliers, they had many. This was because companies would have the suppliers compete on price and also because suppliers were not as dependable,for the most part,as they are today. Companies would hold on to everything for the “just-in-case” scenario. With the abundance of goods, services, and information, practices such as Just In Time can be utilized which only has supplies needed for the near future. It is important to save things, but it is just as important to throw things out . And most important of all is knowing what to discard, what to save, and how to save things so that they can be accessed later.

Example of Organization •If parts are stored in an organized manner, employees will know where to find them when needed Demonstration of organization.

SEITON In English seiton stands for “Neatness”. • Neatness – the study of how fast you can put items away and retrieve them in time of need. To improve a company’s neatness you can not just put things in any random place. What you have to do is come up with a real plan to improve a company’s neatness. Data needs to be collected and analyzed to find the fastest way to put items in their place and retrieve them. Both,the people who use the items frequently and those who seldom use the item, have to be examined to make sure that the plan is universal to all the employees in the company.

Example of Neatness •Each employee name is in alphabetical order for easy access. Demonstration of neatness.

SEISO In English seiso means “Cleaning”. …this includes everyone from the head honcho to the janitor. In residential areas in Japan, street cleaners are not needed because everyone in the community knows their responsibility to take care of the neighborhood. Every family cleans the pavement in front of their house.Now this definitely would not go to well in the United States residential areas. However in a company cleaning improvements can be introduced in time and eventually become a standard practice. In a company, graphs can be made to depict the the area of responsibility for individuals. When this is done, it is important to make sure that all areas are clearly distinguishable to make sure no arguments arise from cleaning. All employees have to be involved for this to work. For example if a line worker sees his supervisor throw a piece of trash on the floor, they are less likely to follow the cleaning rule.

SEIKETSU In English seiketsu means “Standardization”. What exactly are we standardizing? Further explanation on next slide

Standardizing We are going to include the the first three S’s Seiri Seiton Seiso As a standard daily practice in our company. To standardize these practices we have to keep the company organized, maintain its’ cleanliness and keep the neatness to a maximum. If not, these practices will quickly deteriorate and old bad habits will come back quicker and harsher. To keep the stability of this plan, visual aids are put into place. Visual management is used to remind the employees of where items belong and allows them to respond fast to the ‘new’ standards. Visual management is a great way for a company to implement a continuous improvement program. It has been used for production, quality, and safety. Color has been used to create a more friendly working environment. It allows for things to be easily identified. An example of color management is color coding files. Workers now want to wear lite colored clothes on the line. This allows for the workers to easily see dirt and keep an eye out for the cleanliness of their work environment.

SHITSUKE In English shitsuke means “Discipline”. • The discipline which is desired is self-discipline. All employees need this to keep the five S’s an on going improvement plan. Discipline means instilling the ability of doing things the way they are supposed to be done. The emphasis here is on creating a workplace with good habits. By teaching everyone what needs to be done and having everyone practicing it, bad habits are broken and good ones are formed. This step helps people form habits of making and following the rules. Self-discipline is important because it reaches beyond discipline. If a person is 'disciplined' to do something at one time there is a chance that he may not be disciplined next time. However, self-discipline guarantees the continuity of a daily routine. The Japanese are a very self-disciplined race. Besides taking responsibility for the cleanliness of their neighborhoods they also have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. It is also important to inform the employees of the progress made when implementing new programs. There should be before and after photographs to show the employees the improvements. Teams should be made to make sure that everything is going to plan and to help out with any problems the employees are having with keeping to the plan.

Underlying Working Principle of the Five S’s The five S’s eliminate wastes. Wastes are potential gains Where are the wastes in this picture? The Five S’s can not be used alone to improve quality of the workplace and products. However, the Five S’s are an important first step to achieving quality. This plan focuses on reducing wastes, improving organization and making the workplace a friendlier environment. Once this is accomplished a company is well on its’ way to becoming an all-around quality company.

Real World Example United Electric of Watertown, MA has implemented this process and has seen real results UE asked its’ employees to put a tag on everything in their workplace to accomplished the first S (seiri. A green tag meant the item was needed; a yellow tag meant they were unsure if it was needed; and a red tag meant that it was not needed. If there was more then one tag on something, management would talk to the employees to resolve the problem. This rid UE of unwanted items in the work area. For the second S (seiton), UE marked their factory with lines on the floor and wall to identify where certain items belong (e.g., brooms, carts, safety eyewear). This helped the employees put back the items when they were done using them. This also minimized the amount of tools lost. The third S (seiso) involved perfecting the housekeeping methods,checking the machines for dirt and oil and cleaning them if they were dirty. For the fourth S(seiketsu) and fifth S(shitsuke) two teams were implemented. The five-S (sustain) patrol, consisted of two-people team which monitored what was being done and gave each area a score. The score determined which area needed improvement. UE also set up a steering committee. This team established standard colors for areas and tries to fix any other problems that might come up. UE's Visual Control system eliminated clutter and equipment from the work areas; established a location for everything; enhanced the cleanliness and maintenance of equipment; and improved safety. The most beneficial aspect of the system is the effect it has on the quality of the end product.

Exercise What are the benefits of each of the Five S’s? This is were I split the classroom into five different groups.Each group will be assigned an ‘S’ and given 10 minutes to list the benefits of the ‘S’ which they received. Then the group leader will tell the rest of the class the benefits they saw from their respected ‘S’.

Flow of the Five S’s (Review) SEIRI (org) Only keeping nec.item SEITON (neat) Everything has its place SEISO (clean) Keeping the Co. clean SEIKETSU (standard) Making 1st 3S’s a daily job SHITSUKE (discipline) Enforcing the Five S’s The Five S’s follow a specific flow. 1)Once it is determined what items are deemed important for a company(Seiri) the company can move on to the second S 2)Once everything is organized it is important to keep these items is a specific place. This will allow for employees to easily access these items when needed. Once neatness(Seiton) is attained in a company they can move on to the third ‘S’. 3)As soon as everything is organized and put in its’ proper place it is important that each employee(from line workers to management) keeps their assigned area clean. Once this is accomplished it is time for the company to move onto the fourth ‘S’. 4) Now the company has all needed items in their respected places. Every one now knows what their responsibilities are for cleaning. The company is on its’ way to improving its’ quality of their products and their quality of the workplace. Now it is time to make these practices a daily habit through Seiketsu. This ‘S’ makes management keep these practices since this is the only way in which a quality environment will result. Now the importance moves toward Shitsuke(discipline). 5) Now it is up to management to enforce the first four S’s. This is done by educating the employees and creating teams to oversee these steps being executed and correct problems which may arise

In Recap Defined the Five S’s as a quality tool Showed how the Five S’s can improve a business’ organization Identifying what was covered

In Recap Identified what each ‘S’ represented in the overall plan Showed United Electric’s use of the Five S’s Identifying what was covered

Summary The Five S’s are a great start for any company trying to improve their quality and organization This quality is achieved through the constant practice of organization, neatness, cleaning, standardization and discipline. The company trying to implement this program has to realize that this is a continual process and does not happen overnight. However with the cooperation of all the employees the Five S’s can become a tool for improving the future.