Jamie Flinchbaugh Video: Daily Improvement

Everybody Everyday: Managing for Daily Improvement

The link above is an online video presentation by Jamie, courtesy of IndustryWeek (click here to subscribe to their print edition of the magazine).

In This Presentation You Will See

• How 90% of Lean strategies start and end (in minute 10)
• What you really want (and get) out of 5S (in minute 23)
• How you measure Lean (in minute 25)
• The leading metric of truly sustainable Lean change (in minute 27)
• Using lean to change the work of leaders (in minute 32)
• How to manage, not just lead (in minute 35)
• How to integrate Lean into the organization (in minute 41)
• How to know when problems occur (in minute 44)
• and more

Subscribe via RSS | Lean Blog Main Page | Podcast | Message Board

Learn from this "Home 5S" Tip

Household: De-Clutter with a Six-Month "Maybe Box"

The site "lifehacker" is one of my favorite blogs. While not about "Lean" per se, there's often a great deal of overlap between personal productivity and Lean concepts.

In the post I've linked to above talks about de-cluttering the house, which is reminiscent of the early stages of a factory's "5S" initiatives (or a hospital's), where you go through a workspace and identify items that are broken, outdated, obsolete, or not needed. These items can be removed -- trashed, repurposed, or donated -- thus freeing up space for more productive uses, reducing waste.

It's important to recognize that this "spring cleaning" aspect of 5S is really just part of the overall equation of Sort, Store, Shine, Standardized, and Sustain. Spring cleaning really focuses on the first 3. We don't want 5S to just be a one-time or annual activity.

So the lesson from Lifehacker is a good one -- for work or home. Don't immediately throw all items into the trash. Some items are obviously trashable, but some items might be of questionable value. Some caution might be in order, as the post says:

...the Zen Habits blog suggests creating a "Maybe" box, stashing non-dire items in there, and ...

Then store the box somewhere hidden, out of the way. Put a note on your calendar six months from now to look in the box. Then pull it out, six months later, and see if it's anything you really needed. Usually, you can just dump the whole box, because you never needed that stuff.

Good advice! In a workplace, we often set up a "Red Tag area" or a "boneyard" where questionable items can be set aside. I often do this for just a week or two, not necessarily six months. This time frame is a "buffer" to make sure everybody has a chance to look to see if items can really be disposed of without harming operations. The night shifts and weekend shifts deserve a chance to review items. This way, decisions are not made exclusively by the day shift or those who happened to be around while the 5S sweep was taking place.

Subscribe via RSS | Lean Blog Main Page | Podcast | Message Board

Be Careful Overdoing the "Shine" in Your 5S Efforts

TheStar.com | Drinks | Yeast goes wild in Trappist ale

One of my favorite discoveries in the past year is a Belgian "Trappist Ale" called Orval. A friend in Toronto saw this article/review in the local paper and it reminded me of 5S.

I'm we've all been involved in a Lean 5S effort where somebody was overzealous and threw out some piece of equipment or old spare part that really was needed by somebody (but the person who knew this wasn't around). Once you've had that happens, it reinforces the need to have a "buffer zone" often called a "red tag area" where items are held for a week or two until everybody can review and bless the removal of the items.

At the Orval brewery, they had a bit of a mishap during a deep cleaning (not a "5S" in name, but I'm seeing a parallel).

The brewmaster at the time – not a Belgian monk, but a German layman named Martin Pappenheimer – decreed that the tank used to brew the beer shouldn't be washed too thoroughly. During the 1950s, as part of a modernization of the brewery, Pappenheimer's advice was ignored. Cleaning crews wiped out the tank with harsh cleansers, paying particular attention to a calcified deposit left at the bottom. The new, sparkling clean tank produced a beer that was less than, well, sparkling.

The lustrous, white head and wild, tart complex flavour of Orval was gone. That calcified deposit, it turned out, was more than just an inert lump. It was also home to several strains of wild yeast, including one called brettanomyces.

Can you imagine the horror? You'd think that was an error that, unlike ordering some more spare parts, could not be undone. Maybe it speaks to the "can do" spirit of monks, but they managed to recreate that deposit of wild yeasts through research and dedication.

Thankfully, we still get to enjoy their ale, even if it's not quite exactly the same as it was before that cleaning mishap!

Subscribe via RSS | Lean Blog Main Page | Podcast | Message Board

Example: 5S and Reducing Waste

www.kansascity.com | 09/10/2007 | To survive and thrive in these days of globalization, manufacturing companies must carve away the fat.

Here's a nice news story that describes 5S and workplace organization as more than just a neatness or cleanliness exercise. 5S is about preventing or reducing waste and it's about making problems readily visible and apparent to employees and managers.

Seasoning and sauce maker Williams Foods Inc. has embraced “lean manufacturing” with a vengeance.

You can see it in the trash.

In its Lenexa facility, cans marked “Trash” are placed on a painted decal on the floor marked “Trash.”

At this point, you might think "uh oh, this might actually be L.A.M.E. instead of lean" but it doesn't seem to be just an exercise in putting tape around everything.

The article continues:

“Before, it was a mess,” said Cannon, an assistant supervisor on the day shift. “We couldn’t locate anything, and the company had to spend more money ordering equipment because nobody could find it.”

The difference is like night and day, according to Cannon.

“Now, we’ve organized everything, and everybody knows where to find what’s needed,” he said. “It’s cleaner, neater and there’s a lot more space to work with. It makes our job a lot easier and much less frustrating."

That sounds great -- they actually have benefits (waste reduction) and 5S is making work easier and more pleasant for the employees.

The risk with 5S is that it, a tool, is viewed as the entirety of "lean." If you're "doing 5S" instead of solving problems, improving performance to your customers, or making work easier for your employees, people might rightfully look and ask why you're doing that, putting tape around everything. Remember that 5S is really a more involved process of workplace organization, including the idea that you locate the most frequently used supplies and tools in convenient and easy to reach locations. You don't just put tape around everything where it's located currently.

L.A.M.E.: 5S Making Things Harder on Employees

Here's a follow up to my earlier post on 5S not being about neatness (or for neatness' sake).

A reader submitted this anonymous comment that's worth highlighting:

Our plant has started a 5S program that is very counter productive. Tools and parts used for changeovers were moved off the shop floor. now instead of walking 3 feet they have to walk 700 ft. to get what they need. changeovers have increased by over 2 hrs. we look nice. They tell me we are going to start a quick changeover program soon. I can't wait to see it.

What a misapplication of 5S and Lean methods. It's "Lean As Misguidedly Executed."

There are so many things gone wrong in that one paragraph. For one, changeover times should not get longer with a 5S initiative. How does this help employees, the customers, or the company to move needed tools 700 feet away?? The extra motion, the extra setup time, the extra cost will all drive LARGER batch sizes and less customer response.

Looking "nice" is not the goal with 5S, it should be about being effective, organized, and productive (and safe). It might look "nice" that the tools are hidden, but again that's not the goal. It's a workplace and the tools required to do the work should be right at hand, especially if changeovers are done often (and hopefully they are).

Notice how they first implemented 5S and now they're going to come back and do "quick changeover." The tools-driven approach to Lean (let's implement one at a time) doesn't seem to be working really well. Isolated misinformation and misapplication of 5S let them to make decisions (move tools far away) that will probably be countered by the quick changeover approach (get tools closer to point of use).

Finally, if you implement things like that, your employees will think you (the managers or Lean implementors) are idiots. And I wouldn't blame them.

Trying to take a more balanced view -- it IS possible that the plant re-arranged the workplace into a cellular layout. If that's the case, having setup tools only 3 feet away might have been getting in the way of the smaller, tighter production cell. If the dies or tools are huge, you might want to move them out of the direct production flow path (if those tools had kept you from moving machines or operations as close together as you would like). That said, you'd have to think you could find a tool storage area closer than 700 feet away.

Either way, it sounds like this employee, the one leaving the comment, didn't have a chance to give input or wasn't listened to.

If you have other "L.A.M.E." stories, post them here in a comment or email me using the link in the left hand column of this page.

Not Neatness for Neatness Sake

MSN Careers - Is a Messier Desk Better?

I was going to blog about this book before and Dan Markovitz had beaten me to it. But, Matt, a Lean Blog reader, sent me this new article on the same topic -- is neatness potentially a waste of time? This discussion and the articles are based on the book A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place (now there's a cluttered mess of a title!!!)

I tried giving the book a chance (in audio book form) and got through the first few chapters. I think the author makes a reasonable point that neatness for neatness sake isn't of high value. But, the articles I've seen about the book tend to make the leap from questioning neatness to glorifying messiness. I don't think that's the message the book was trying to get across. I'm sure the author might think this example would be waste, so do I. If neatness and order means we mark where our keyboard goes, yes, that's probably a waste of time.

There's a big difference between one person and their personal space (a desk) vs. a shared workplace. Most of 5S is intended to help in shared workplaces right? When I do 5S work, I always emphasize that we aren't trying to be neat for the sake of being neat, we're trying to reduce waste and make abnormal situations more readily visible. A messy and disorganized shared workspace leads to waste, as people are looking for needed tools and supplies instead of doing value added work.

Instead of asking "Is a Messier Desk Better?", as the MSN article does, we should be asking "What's the Cost of a Messy Desk?" If there's zero cost (you're the only user of the space and you can keep track of where things are, no problem). If it's a shared bench in a factory, a laboratory, or a pharmacy, then the cost of messiness could be very high. That's where common sense has to intersect with Lean methods.

The MSN article says:

"Mess isn't necessarily the absence of order," Abrhamson and Freedman claim. "A messy desk can be a highly effective prioritizing and accessing system. In general, on a messy desk, the more important, urgent work tends to stay close by and near the top of the clutter, while the safely ignorable stuff tends to get buried to the bottom or near the back, which makes perfect sense.

In a way, that's a 5S principle -- the most frequently used documents (or tools) should be at closest reach, that might be at the top of a stack.

From the article, an example that might show a lack of common sense:

Feelings toward workspace chaos can be strong. The book cites a Bradford, Penn. police chief who actually was fired for not having a neat desk.

Firing someone over a messy desk? Come on. I would guess the chief was fired as part of somebody's show of power. If a City Manager or Mayor instituted some "clean desk policy" and decided to fire the police chief (or anybody) for not following it, that's either bad management or it was a police chief they could afford to lose...

What are your thoughts? Seen examples of "neatness for the sake of neatness" instead of using 5S to eliminate waste?

We Need "Creativity Before Capital" in Hospitals

RFID tracks hospital's devices Dallas Morning News News for Dallas, Texas Business

This article was in the Dallas paper a week ago. It talks about a local hospital that is implementing fancy cabinets and an RFID tracking system for inventory management.

The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano, which opened earlier this year, is one of about a dozen hospitals around the country and the first in Dallas-Fort Worth that's implemented a radio frequency identification network.

The system essentially automates the tracking and cataloging of almost all of the hospital's most expensive equipment. Experts say the system improves patient care, streamlines inventory, makes it easier to handle recalls and cuts costs.

The system also costs over $4 million dollars to implement (10 cabinets x $400,000 each). I wonder how much process improvement was attempted. I'm noot opposed to technology, but systems like this are often sold as a silver bullet.

The system has flaws, flaws that good processes have to counter:

One concern with RFID is that automated scans aren't 100 percent effective. For example, if an RFID-tagged box is turned the wrong way, the scanner might not detect the signal from the chip, rendering the item essentially invisible and untrackable.

Mr. Christianson said improvements to the design of the antennas on the tags have boosted read rates in the cabinets to close to 100 percent.

So without a 100% effective system, will the hospital STILL have to resort to cycle counting and other manual inventory tracking methods?

Ron Pereira has a post with a graphic showing the results of a recent Bain Consulting study about different improvement methods, their frequency of use and satisfaction. Satisfaction with RFID ranked very low, even lower than satisfaction with Lean (which was pegged at 19%). We can't expect to install an RFID system and expect all of our problems to solved.

I'm reminded of the story from the DVD "Good News... How Hospitals Heal Themselves" about the hospital that had been having trouble with wheelchairs ending up missing. They thought they needed to buy more. What they needed was a better process. They implemented 5S, standard work, and visual management (all Lean tools) and managed to solve the problem. Wheelchairs were available where people expected to find them, when they needed them.

Again, I'm not saying there's ZERO role for technologies, but it sure is less costly to experiment with Lean methods before shelling out $4 million, especially with hospitals being so strapped for cash.

"Creativity before Capital" is a common Lean expression for a good reason.

Always Room For Improvement

By Andy Wagner:

I had an internal factory tour that reminded me of Mark's recent blog on the Not So Lean Factory Tour. The plant was not nearly the horror story Mark experienced, and in fact, it was one of best examples of lean that I've seen in my company. That said, based on some of the things expressed by this plant's leadership, I think there must be "12-steps" separating a true lean mindset from the oft present "LAME" mindset.

The first step, of course, is admitting that you have a problem, which the folks in the factory that Mark visited were not ready to do. The factory that I toured passed step one with flying colors, but their motivation shocked me. It took a near fatal accident performing routine maintenance on a machine to convince them to take lean seriously. The root cause analysis determined that the technician could not access the machine in a safe way due to the clutter packing the entire floor of the facility. Their first 5-S measures were dedicated to preventing this kind of serious safety problem by clearing out the extra carts, racks, toolboxes, and equipment and making the factory floor a safe place to be. As I said before, shocking, but thank goodness they were willing to commit to meaningful corrective action.

The second step: learning that continuous improvement must be continuous. They haven't got this one yet. The GM, professing to be a true convert to lean, told us all about their "5-year plan to lean the plant." I politely declined to ask the rhetorical question about what he intended to do when the 5 years are up. (By then, he'll be promoted to his next gig). In fairness, his 5-year plan represented prudent "hoshin kanri." The plant was organized functionally, so the initial plan was, over the course of 5-years, to move machines around into value stream oriented cells. No other machining plant that I've seen in my company has had the lean commitment or foresight to do this. Looking at the results two years into the process, I have to applaud it. Their inventory turns are approaching double what I've heard for similar facilities. Cycle time has had a similarly significant drop. Still, on the floor, I'm amazed at some of the clutter, the extra racks, the extra inventory. And the inventory turn numbers aren't very impressive compared to Danaher or Toyota numbers that I've read. I would hope they're willing to continuously raise expectations.

Accounting was another area where I was struck by some of the GM's comments. He was understandably oriented toward the financial numbers by which he is measured: direct labor productivity, keeping base hours up to reduce his labor rate. Unfortunately, as folks like Bill Waddell and Kevin Meyer continue to argue, none of these metrics drive you toward a lean and effective plant. By lean accounting standards, they're measuring the wrong things, and only through very diligent effort, able to justify doing the right things despite their incentives.

It was great to see a facility in my company doing as well as this one has, but at the same time, it mostly stoked my hunger to go farther. There's always room for improvement. That's step two.

What Will You Do Differently Today?

By Dan Markovitz
Back in October, Lifehacker ran a lengthy article on "personal kaizen." The thrust of the piece is how we can improve our lives by adopting the kaizen approach of the TPS and applying it to our own work habits.

It's not worth nitpicking some of the author's misunderstanding of kaizen, and the confusion with other lean principles like error-proofing or eliminating waste. While he's certainly not ready to write a scholarly treatise on lean, he does touch on something very important: that kaizen can apply to every aspect of how we work, even the small, seemingly insignificant (or ancillary) aspects of our work habits.

There's a tendency to think of kaizen as a massive, stop-the-assembly-line "event" during which we make gigantic improvements in the company's operations. And certainly there's value to the kaizen blitz. But relying upon a "blitz" for improvement often means ignoring the value that the steady accretion of small changes can bring.

The author points out, for example, how he looked at his system for handling email and improved it so that he didn't lose urgent or critical emails:

You might introduce a folder flow. You're all email wizards by now, so this is just an example. You might have an inbox and an urgent box. You set up a filter so that all email marked urgent go into the urgent box, and all others sit in the inbox. You set aside five minutes every hour, right before you refill your coffee cup, to deal with the urgent items as quickly as possible-- you want that coffee, right? And twice, right before lunch and before you leave for the day, you clear out the inbox, reading and dealing with all items that weren't marked urgent. Easy and simple, with process improvements and thinking built in.

And here's another example of how he constantly fiddles with the way he stores information -- phone numbers, contact names, links to websites he finds valuable -- so as to improve his ability to find what he needs quickly:

A few months back, I started using GTDTiddlyWiki. It's packed with features, and I've found a number of them that I like very well-- really, it's just a canvas on which you can design your own process improvements and workflows. I store lots of data there. I back it up by sending it to my Gmail account. I'm continually tearing apart my system of hyperlinks and reconfiguring them in ways that make more sense, are simpler and easier. It took some time getting used to it, but that single, free HTML document ended up being my killer app, and I would miss it terribly. Now I use it every day, and using it is unconscious. I don't have to think about what I'm going to do with a phone number or a contact name. I don't need to wonder where I wrote that little idea. All that thinking is inbuilt.

All he was trying to do was make his life just a bit easier, and without realizing it, he hit on key elements of 5S, of waste, and of standard work.

Whether or not his system would work for you is irrelevant. What's important to note is his constant fiddling with his personal work system. He's attempting to make his job a little bit simpler, so that he can do his job a little bit more easily.

Have you examined how you work recently? Do you lose time looking for information -- or worse, actually lose the information itself? Do you start a task -- an email, a budget review, a press release -- and lose track of it behind six other windows on your computer -- and then, when you rediscover it, you realize that you forgot what you were going to write? Do you wake up at 2am remembering a phone call that you didn't make?

These are symptoms of problems that you can solve, with a little bit (okay, maybe a lot) of kaizen. Look at those annoyances and ask the Five Why's. Think about how you can improve your work habits to eliminate those problems. Just like problems on a production line, all these issues are simply opportunities to improve your work process and do your job better.

In a Fast Company article on Toyota, journalist Charles Fishman noted that a typical Toyota assembly line in the United States makes thousands of operational changes in the course of a single year. He adds,

that number is not just large, it's arresting, it's mind-boggling. How much have you changed your work routine in the past decade? Toyota's line employees change the way they work dozens of times a year.

And he's right, of course. Most of us handle memos, documents, phone calls, emails, meetings, interruptions -- all the forms in which information flows through us (and our office) -- the same way today as we did last month, last year, and three years ago. While we've been planning our upcoming kaizen blitz in the factory (or the hospital or the insurance office), we've forgotten to look at our own work habits to see what we could improve. And that's really the essence of kaizen.

Lean & Six Sigma Traps to Avoid

Article Link

Thanks to Ron for sending this article my way. Check out his excellent blog post on the difference between being fast and "playing fast," tying the football idea to manufacturing (although I'm hoping my Wildcats can finally beat his Buckeyes again soon).

This article talks about failure modes for Lean and Six Sigma (check out my "Lean Failures" blog while you're at it, maybe).

Trap #2 is listed as: "A Few Hours of Training Is All Employees Need" and it goes on to talk about 3 to 5 day kaizen events, without mentioning that "Relying on Kaizen Events to become Lean" could also be listed as a "trap."

Today, I recorded a Podcast interview with a group of leaders from the Group Health Cooperative in Washington state, authors of the excellent Daily Kaizen blog. One point they made was that kaizen events ("rapid process improvement workshops") only got them so far. They had to move on to a more systemic approach to Lean as a management system. Stay tuned for that Podcast in the next few weeks.

Trap #4 is listed as "Housekeeping is for Sissies." Nice phrase, but I wish we could stop referring to 5S as a "housekeeping" initiative. 5S is a waste-elimination process, pure and simple. I do agree with this quoted comment:

"If you've set up your 5S program properly, you should be able to find a place on the floor where you can stand and just by looking you can tell if things are normal and going as planned," says Tompkins.

That's what 5S is about -- reducing waste and making abnormal conditions readily visible (thanks to Jamie Flinchbaugh for often making that point).

Bad Lean/5S Hits the UK Media

A few weeks back, the British media was having a field day with reports of and complaints about what sounds like a horribly misguided "office lean" effort at a British government office.

The picture to the left is from one newspaper article. It shows a desk where every item's location is marked with black tape. The article explains:

The exercise, which involves markers for items including computer keyboards, telephones and stationery, is designed to improve efficiency by making desks neater.

However, one worker last night described the system, being implemented by logistics company Unipart, as "demeaning".

This is a classic example of bad 5S and bad lean efforts. Stuff like this is all too common and it really gives lean a bad name. As we've talked about in other posts, 5S is about reducing waste and making abnormal situations apparent.

What waste is prevented by marking where the phone goes? None, probably. Is there anything to be gained by seeing that the phone is two inches too far forward? No, not really. Seems like this 5S effort isn't doing much, but antagonizing folks.

This article calls it "madness" in the headline and adds:

According to the Daily Telegraph , the programme has been so far reaching that one member of staff was asked whether a banana was 'active' or 'inactive', in other words whether it was going to be eaten immediately, which was acceptable, or whether it was for later, which would mean the fruit would have to be cleared from the desk.

An HMRC spokeswoman said the programme, which was devised by consultants Unipart to improve performance, would help ensure that office space was efficiently used and would also support working relationships.

The consultants had good intentions. 5S *can* be a powerful method in a lean company. But, marking the location of items is just one aspect of 5S and 5S/lean have to be done the right way. The article also said:

"... employees were allowed to move items into zones that suited them best."

If the consultants asked each accountant where they wanted their items, that might have been one positive sign -- showing respect for people in that sense. So why did employees find it degrading? Probably because the consultants didn't explain "why", as Toyota would tend to do.

What if two employees who shared a desk (as happens in these British offices) disagreed with where items went? They wouldn't pick up and move the tape constantly would they?

Oh, they do... and it gets worse. More articles and links below:

Manufacturing Talk

The Telegraph

This is London

Guardian

Another Article

I could go on and on about how that effort gives "Lean" a bad name. If you're just antagonizing people with putting tape around stuff, please stop. Trying using Lean methods to solve real business problems (such as slow cycle time, defects, cost, or employee safety).

Lean, done right, won't feel "demeaning" to people.

Lean and Safety Go Together

Don't Strain Yourself

Here is a great article about how a company has implemented lean to improve safety. Concepts like 5S and waste reduction go hand in hand with ergonomics, safety, quality, and productivity. Oh, and this company is from the construction industry, even.

However, if a work site is cluttered and disorganized, training on poor lifting technique and proper body postures can fly out the window. That's one reason why Walbridge-Aldinger has adopted Toyota's lean manufacturing philosophy.

The philosophy involves identifying and reducing waste - such as overproduction, waiting and transportation - and adopting a system of workplace organization and visual controls known as the "Five S's." Loosely translated from Japanese to English, the Five S's are: sort, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain.

As an example of how the principles of lean manufacturing have enhanced safety - and minimized sprains and strains - Clabaugh pointed to an "old way of doing business."

"We'd have a laborer carry two 5-gallon gas cans out of a C container or storage area and walk the distance of the job site and walk down a ramp into a construction pit to fuel our equipment," Clabaugh said, noting that lifting and carrying the gas cans for such a distance posed the potential for sprains and strains or, at the very least, discomfort.

Using the principles of lean manufacturing, Walbridge-Aldinger purchased four-wheel carts from Home Depot and secured the gas cans to the cart, allowing workers to pull the cart from the C container or the storage area to the work area.

Notice how they used simple off-the-shelf solutions, sort of like the parts trays that Toyota bought from Wal-Mart down the road from the new San Antonio factory.

Permission to Change

I went through a discussion today that reminded me of a similar situation early in a lean effort at my old manufacturing company a few years back.

Early in lean efforts, one of the things I focus on is 5S, for many reasons. One reason is that it gets employees evaluating their workplace, giving input, and making suggestions. One of the positive side effects of this change is the realization in some employees:

"You mean it's OK to move things, it's OK to make changes?"

And you know what... sometimes that unleashes a wave of changes that were pent up. I heard this comment today and it's exciting to see people changing things that they wouldn't have considered changing a month ago. These are little "just do it" ideas, sort of like Norman Bodek talks about. They didn't require suggestion forms or approval, no formal "kaizen event"... just do it, just make some small change that makes your workplace slightly easier... then repeat. That's kaizen, right?

The thing that's curious to me: nobody ever told them "don't make changes" but this fear or unease builds up to the point that the most obvious waste is never addressed by anyone. People dealt with it, or maybe complained, but didn't take action.

I guess it shows that when you don't ask people for their input, when you don't ask them what could be better, that people assume that you don't care and that they shouldn't either?

What are your experiences with these mindsets?

RFID as a Workaround

I've been wondering for a while what the value of my CPIM certification is (a previous employer paid for it). APICS has been trying to reinvent itself as more of a lean organization rather than just being an MRP methodology group.

Looking at the most recent APICS Magazine cover story, it makes me want to cancel my membership and subscription altogether. The article shows their obsession with technology and the lack of lean thinking that still hampers them.

The article pushes technology -- RFID tags to be used in hospitals to track and locate equipment. Hospital staff spend hours searching for defibrillators and other equipment that's misplaced or hard to find. This waste isn't surprising at all, from my experience. Not only does the lack of organization waste employee time (reducing the amount of time they can spend on patient care), there can be a direct link to patient care if a defibrillator can't be found when it's desperately needed.

One quote:

"People have been frustrated for years because they buy something -- particularly small items -- and it never stays where it's supposed to."

That's true. But jumping to RFID tags isn't really solving the root cause of the problem. It's lazy problem solving (stuff is missing, so we have to put tags on the stuff so we can find it). You have to ask WHY stuff is missing. Answers might include:

• There's no standard "parking spot" for the equipment
• There's a shortage of equipment, so employees "stash" something so THEY know where to get it when they need it

If we keep asking why -- why isn't there a standard parking spot for items?? We start moving into the realm of 5S, standard work, and workplace organization --- stuff that's WAY cheaper than RFID technology. RFID technology is a band-aid, a workaround. It doesn't prevent stuff from getting lost. The "Good News" DVD had a great example of how a hospital prevented wheelchairs from being lost by using lean methods. No RFID required.

One hospital 4,000 tags at $30 each (equipment tags), for a total hardware cost of $120,000 -- batteries lat 2 years, so the tags have to be replaced, I presume. That's $60,000 a year, plus software, plus consulting. Lean would be a lot cheaper (even if you hired a consultant to get you going).

Back to my frustration with APICS. The article talks about WHICH RFID system to use. The article never asked "why" or what other alternatives there were to solving the same problem. The writer is a free-lancer "specializing in investment and technology topics." Maybe that's the problem -- APICS has non-APICS people writing their articles. I wonder if the article wasn't just a subtle advertisement rather than being just a news story? It's sad to see APICS succumbing to "siren songs" of another sort (RFID technology instead of enterprise software). I hope the writer didn't have an undisclosed investment stake in the companies he wrote about. I'll assume APICS has editorial standards to prevent that, but it still makes you wonder why that guy is writing for APICS.

The 5S Workplace: Cause or Effect?

By Dan Markovitz, Time Back Management:

A response to an earlier post...

Is messiness really beneficial?

I think the authors of A Perfect Mess make a silly distinction. On the one hand, you have order for order's sake. The authors argue that all those poor fools who arrange their pencils by hardness of lead are in love with order for no valid reason other than aesthetics. Or they're neurotic.

On the other hand, you have chaos in the service of creativity. The authors suggest that messiness enables people to get on with the really important things in their lives, rather than having their sock drawer arranged just right. And the time freed up by embracing chaos allows people to do wonderful things, like connecting two pieces of paper on their desks, and winning a Nobel Prize.

But they miss the point. Truly organized people aren't organized just for the sake of order. Rather, their organization is a RESULT of a process for dealing with all the stuff in their lives. These folks avoid interment in paper or email by having a clear methodology for handling all the business (and personal) responsibilities in their lives. By handling this stuff effectively, they avoid clutter and chaos.

So people shouldn't focus on getting organized. Rather, they should focus on a system for dealing with all the stuff that comes at them. And that will (help) create a 5S workspace. For example, doctors don't focus on getting their operating room organized. Rather, they have a strict process for preparing for an operation: they wash their hands in a certain way, they lay out their instruments in a certain way, they check the equipment in a certain way. . . and always the exact same way. Every time. The result of this system is a 5S workspace.

The authors of A Perfect Mess make much of the Nobel Prize that came about because someone connected two pieces of paper on his desk. I suppose you might be constructing a system that prevents you from curing cancer, or developing cold fusion. But that seems to me a bit like using the Powerball lottery as a retirement strategy. It *might* pay off. But most likely, you'll just be out a bunch of money.

Why Clean Your Desk? Is This 5S?

Why Clean Up Your Desk? Delight in Disorder Instead (WSJ $$)

What does a clean desk have to do with 5S? It depends. Do you have your own desk or do you share a workspace with others? Can you find any item or piece of information within 20 seconds or does it take forever to find anything?

The article I've linked to is about a book called A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place.

How's that for a messy and cluttered book title??

One of the arguments the authors make has some merit from a total system perspective:

"And mess can also serve as a valuable time-saver: The sloppy desk liberates the desk owner to focus on more important things. All that time spent straightening piles of paper -- or working your way diligently through memos, messages and mailings -- could be better used to crunch numbers or to think of a shrewd way of marketing Widget 2.0."

Granted, we all have limited minutes in the day (and in our lives). We have to prioritize those moments and straightening an office might honestly not be the right thing to be doing right now. A clean desk in a failing business might be like re-arranging desk chairs on the Titanic, eh?

When a guy from Ford emails me about the office 5S program they have, I have to wonder where their priorities are. Do they really think the biggest waste in their business system is messy desks for engineers?

5S is a method for eliminating waste and for making sure problems are apparent (so they can be solved). 5S is not just a "neat freak" exercise. Now, if engineers are having trouble working together and new model launches are being delayed because of messy desks, then maybe you have an argument for office 5S.

Lean isn't just about 5S. We should do lean for lean's sake and we shouldn't do 5S for 5S's sake.

From what I read in that book review, it hasn't convinced me that messes are more helpful than they are harmful. Do I have a bit of a messy office at home? Sure. But, my lean project team rooms are organized -- because a group of us have to function and be productive together in that space. I can find the papers in stacks in my desk and home -- nobody else has to. In our group room, we rely on 5S and organization to make sure we can all be productive, that we always put papers and tools back in the same place.

What do you think of "Office 5S"? Has it been helpful for you? Or just a hassle? Click "comments" to share your experiences.

Here is a free book review from Fast Company magazine.

Making it Easy to do the Right Thing

Here is a simple example that I think qualifies as a "5S" example, albeit a non-traditional one. This is a dirty beverage counter at an airport, see the straw wrappers and trash. It was dirty and messy when I walked up to it.

I think most people want to do the right thing. When I got a drink and a straw, I opened the straw and looked for a trash can. Couldn't find one. There wasn't a little trash can on the counter, as you see at some places, nor was there a hole in the counter for trash (ala Starbucks). I even looked for a trash can nearby on the ground, found nothing.

It was easier to just chuck it on the counter. I felt bad about it, but oh well. This mess creates extra work for employees (they've already outsourced the drink dispensing to you, the customer). It looks messy and creates a bad impression to customers.

Part of the 5S concept is to think about the tools and items that you need and that your employees need. In this case, somebody should have thought that a customer would want a trash can and should have put one in easy sight, in arm's reach.

Sure, put tape around the little counter-top trash can if you want, once one is in place. Putting tape around things is just one aspect of 5S. The first step is to make sure the tools and supplies that you need are close by near the point of use. Making it easy for people to do the right thing will go a long way in getting the results you want (in this case, a clean counter).

As I walked away from the counter, I finally did see a trash can... hidden behind a corner of a wall in a spot that indeed couldn't have been seen from the counter.

Are there examples in your workplace where tools and items your employees need aren't in the right locations, where they are convenient for people to do the right thing?

5S Example from Toyota

Peter Abilla's Shmula Blog

Peter pointed me to this example he posted a while back, he says "it's an authentic artifact from Toyota. I participated in this when I spent 1.5 weeks in the Hebron, KY supply parts distribution facility."

It's an example of Toyota problem solving to help figure out why daily 5S cleaning wasn't occurring.

Take a look, he includes a graphic of an A3 report, a summary of their work.

Initiating Lean with 5S?

By Jean Cunningham:

Mark's note: Here is the first post from Jean Cunningham. I'm looking forward to her future contributions to the blog. For more about Jean and her lean experience, click here. She brings a unique perspective to the Lean Blog, having been a CFO and having led lean efforts from the executive level. Please welcome Jean to the Lean Blog!

---------------------------

It would be impossible to find a description of Lean without a focus on 5S. After all, who has not heard, “Without standards there can be no improvement.”

But in my experience with Lean, our company did not learn about 5S from our consultants until after more than a year into our Lean Journey. By that time we had our entire product portfolio organized by 7 product lines (or value streams) with product being manufactured in one piece flow to the demand rate of the customer.

So it continues to surprise me when I visit companies who initiate their Lean efforts with 5S. My first experience with this focus on 5S as a standalone activity was with a company that had decided that everyone in the company had to be “doing Lean” by holding 5S events. The result was office people cleaning up and creating taped off desk areas and labeling of files. As important as it is to use the 5S techniques, the goal is to actually eliminate activities that do not support customer value. It was a pretty hard stretch for people to see the connection between taping off desks, and cleaning up areas and the creation of customer value. Because the connection was so tenuous, the focus on Lean seemed trivial to people.

Recently, I discussed this dilemma with a CEO who was verbally committed to Lean. He had hired a consultant that started their company off with 5S events. I asked him what he thought about this approach now that they committed to this direction. He said that initially he was very concerned that the results would not flow to the customer; however, his opinion was mollified when he saw that the teams, while cleaning up, and creating standards in 5S events also took action to change some of the processes that were causing some of the wastes. (He continued to be eager to get to the “real Lean” activities.)

This was a good perspective for me to hear, as a critic of starting with 5S. Because it was true that more people could get involved more quickly with 5S (than focusing entirely in manufacturing to create one piece flow cellular product lines.) And if empowered to make changes to the processes, as they implemented 5S, they could launch the power of the collective genius of more people.

So have I converted by view on initiating Lean with 5S? Well, no. I still believe that focusing on processes, eliminating waste, increasing flow, and reducing batch sizes using cross functional teams of empowered employees is best. I view 5S as an excellent support process, but find 5S too inwardly focused if used as standalone activities. But I do know acknowledge that, 5S, when combined with process improvements, can be a very powerful combination.

5S Week on the Lean Blog

Jamie's Earlier 5S Column

In honor of our new Sponsor, The 5S Store, this is "5S Week" on the Lean Blog. We'll feature commentary from our bloggers on 5S and invite you to share your 5S success stories (or frustrations). If you need 5S supplies and materials, check out our sponsor.

Check back later today for some commentary on a doozy of a 5S story from the UK.

For now, check out a column Jamie Flinchbaugh wrote on 5S last June.

There are different translations of the Japanese 5S terms: Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, and Shitsuke. From now on, avoid the Japanese words. They can be translated as:

• Sort -- get rid of non-essential items, make sure most frequently used items are close by
  
• Store -- "a place for everything and everything in its place"
  
• Shine -- keep things clean so you can tell when problems occur
  
• Standardize -- establish "standard work" for housekeeping and organization
  
• Sustain -- drive continuous improvement in your process

A 5S program alone is not lean. 5S is not just about looking clean and tidy for tours. 5S is not about putting tape around everything. There will be more details about 5S here on the Lean Blog this week.