Why 5S?

5S has many purposes. We will find that the basic purposes as stated in some books and internet will be

1) Improvement in Operation Efficiency

2) Improvement in Safety

3) Improvement in Morale

However, Why is 5S important to our organization?

Before implementing 5S in our organization, we must understand that 5S final aim is to make everybody in the organization live in happiness.

What is happiness to employee or employer in working organization?

- Basic Salary, Bonus Up (Have enough money to enjoy life)

- Able to use Paid Vacation without any problem (Have enough Time for private life)

Simple isn't it? Our organization must have enough profits to make people happy.

As we all know, the profits come from the clients, therefore in order to make the client choose us we must be able to make them feel relieved (cost/quality) and safe (delivery).

No matter how big the organizations are, our clients are also people like us. So everybody wants to feel secure and relieve with every activities or decisions they made.

What I am trying to explain here is that 5S is a method to deliver security and safety to your client to make them choose you in their business decision. However, the problem is, have the products that our clients bought from us satisfies them to compare with our competitors? The answer would be, in order to make our clients keep choosing us, we need to innovate our management system. Therefore we have to collaborate in a lot of dimension to use the management resources effectively for the revitalization of our organization. By using 5S method properly we will make our clients feel safe and secured. As a result our company's sales will increase and gain enough profits. 5S implementations will make us able to innovate the internal and external of the management environment. 

What I meant from the Internal Environment Innovation are:

(1) Reconsidering/reconstruct attributes of the organizational function.

(2)Clear Mission to all functional department/group in organization.

(3)Clear Mission to all position/duty/work unit/training.

On the other hand, the External Environment Innovation are:

(1) Application of data analysis (Sales, Production, etc) in decision making.

(2) Continuous Markets, Clients, Products, Competitors Analysis.

(3) Strategies and Tactics designing/planning.

5S is not just a tool to clean your workplace, correct understanding of the concept will make us see larger image to solve a lot of problems in our organizations. I am not saying that 5S will solve everything but by implementing 5S we will visualize our organization's problems and make us able to build strong beam to stabilize our organization. If there is any organization that can successfully implement 5S, I am 100% sure that they will be able to implement any higher level management methods or technologies in their organization. 5S will be a good benchmark to label the level of our management systems. This is the reason why I would like to suggest to apply 5S in your organization.

WHAT IS 5S

In previous post I had explained about 4 stages to achieve management innovation. The first stage is about workers awareness innovation in your organization. 5S method is a great way to clear this stage.

About 5S definition we can find it in internet, simply 5S is [整理:Seiri、整頓:Seiton、清掃:Seisou、清潔:Seiketsu、躾:Sitsuke], Based on five Japanese words that begin with ‘S’, the 5S Philosophy focuses on effective work place organization and standardized work procedures. Lets look at the Definitions of every ‘S’.

(1)  整理：Seiri (Tidiness)

-       Distinguish the necessary items from the unnecessary ones.

-       Separate necessary from unnecessary information.

The first step of the "5S" process, Seiri, refers to the act of throwing away all unwanted, unnecessary, and unrelated materials in the workplace. People involved in Seiri must not feel sorry about having to throw away things. The idea is to ensure that everything left in the workplace is related to work. Even the number of necessary items in the workplace must be kept to its absolute minimum. Because of Seiri, simplification of tasks, effective use of space, and careful purchase of items follow.

(2)  整頓:Seiton (Orderliness)

-       Anyone can access or return necessary item, any time in the quantity needed.

Seiton, or orderliness, is all about efficiency.  This step consists of putting everything in an assigned place so that it can be accessed or retrieved quickly, as well as returned in that same place quickly.  If everyone has quick access to an item or materials, work flow becomes efficient, and the worker becomes productive.  The correct place, position, or holder for every tool, item, or material must be chosen carefully in relation to how the work will be performed and who will use them. Every single item must be allocated its own place for safekeeping, and each location must be labeled for easy identification of what it's for.

(3)  清掃:Seisou(Cleanliness)

- Clean the workplace; everyone should be a janitor

Seisou, the third step in "5S", says that 'everyone is a janitor.'  Seisou consists of cleaning up the workplace and giving it a 'shine'.  Cleaning must be done by everyone in the organization, from operators to managers. It would be a good idea to have every area of the workplace assigned to a person or group of persons for cleaning. No area should be left unclean. Everyone should see the 'workplace' through the eyes of a visitor - always thinking if it is clean enough to make a good impression.

(4)  清潔:Seiketsu(Standardization)

-       Standardize the way of maintaining cleanliness

The fourth step of "5S", or Seiketsu, more or less translates to 'standardized clean-up'. It consists of defining the standards by which personnel must measure and maintain 'cleanliness'.  Seiketsu encompasses both personal and environmental cleanliness. Personnel must therefore practice 'Seiketsu' starting with their personal tidiness. Visual management is an important ingredient of Seiketsu.  Color-coding and standardized coloration of surroundings are used for easier visual identification of anomalies in the surroundings. Personnel are trained to detect abnormalities using their five senses and to correct such abnormalities immediately.

(5)  躾:Sitsuke(Discipline)

-       Practice 'Five S' daily - make it a way of life; this also means 'commitment'

This is by far the most difficult S to implement and achieve. Human nature is to resist change and more than a few organizations have found themselves with a dirty cluttered shop a few months following their attempt to implement 5S. The tendency is to return to the status quo and the comfort zone of the "old way" of doing things. Sustain focuses on defining a new status quo and standard of work place organization.

The definition of 5S is like above, it looks very easy but in reality even in Japan most of companies failed to gain result from 5S activities. Most of CEO just understands the 5S by the definition without knowing what 5S philosophy is and how to use 5S to innovate the management system. Even they understand the theory most of them will relate 5S to tidiness, cleanliness. They will be satisfied when the workplace looks clean and tidy. It’s not about the result, it’s about the process of how you coach your worker in implementing 5S. Therefore some organization need experts to coach them. There is big difference between workplace that is clean without using 5S and the one using 5S. In order to apply 5S in our organization we must first really understand the philosophy of 5S. I will explain it in my future post.        

4 Stages towards Management Innovation

In my previous blog i wrote why we needed to innovate the management system. The word Management Innovation itself has wide definition. If we search about management innovation there are lot of methods or approaches to innovate the management system. I don't want to evaluate which one is good or not because every and each method have their own merits and demerits, the important part is how we apply and work it out in our business environment. However I would like to share my knowledges and experiences in 4 stages towards Management Innovation.

Innovating management system means that we need to create a paradigm shift in our management system drastically. In this process a lot of energies required and a lot challenges have to be faced. Management Innovation that I am heading to is whereby every person in the organization participates and take part in the process.The combination of Bottom-up activities and Top-down strategies must be well-planned to revitalize the whole organization.

1) Stage 1 : Awareness Innovation

First Stage is the stage to evoke awareness and share sense of crisis. This stage is the most important stage, we cannot go to next stage without clearing this particular stage. "Innovating" means "to change", therefore, first everyone must understand reason for the change. What will happen if we failed to change? The management site must deliver powerful message and visualize the aim of management innovation. For me the important key to succeed in the management innovation is by changing the mind of workers. Changing Mind means to change the workers' current comfort zone to a new comfort zone. Creating new comfort zone, we must have clear and powerful image of future vision status where our innovation process have already succeed. For example, by giving cooperation in reformation process every worker will earn more salary and bonus without having doing any overtime. 

What is comfort zone ?

The comfort zone is a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviours to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk (White 2009).[1] A person's personality can be described by his or her comfort zones. Highly successful persons may routinely step outside their comfort zones, to accomplish what they wish. A comfort zone is a type of mental conditioning that causes a person to create and operate mental boundaries. Such boundaries create an unfounded sense of security.Like inertia, a person who has established a comfort zone in a particular axis of his or her life, will tend to stay within that zone without stepping outside of it. To step outside a person's comfort zone, they must experiment with new and different behaviors, and then experience the new and different responses that then occur within their environment.

From my experiences in order to accomplish this stage, I would like to suggest 5S method implementation in your organization. I will explain about 5S Philosophy and how to get start and have a successful 5S implementation in further session. 5S is a great concept to create the best working environment. 5S simplifies your work environment, reduces wastes and non-value activities while improving quality efficiency and safety. By applying 5S method we also can benchmark our workplace management level, workers awareness and problem solving abilities. 5S provides a higher qualities of life and self-esteem for everyone in the organization. 5S in first stage will be focusing on workplace appearance. In first stage we must unite all workers to face the challenges for next level.

2) Stage 2 : Business Process Innovation

Second stage also known as 5S Second stage is stage for innovating the business process in the company. After running the 5S (first stage) activities for certain period such as one year or so, workers will start to realize the need of management innovation. 5S will trained them in how to sense the problem, communicate with each other and solve them. Every section in organization will start to realize what is the real problem that they faced in their work. Second Stage is an important stage which is to clarify the mission of organization and eliminate [ムリ、ムラ、ムダ] in the business process. [ムリ、ムラ、ムダ] means "Unreasonableness, Inconsistency, Waste".

In Second Stage, every section will make "改善:KAIZEN" planning to solve their problems. In this stage the method like IE (Industrial Engineering), Lean Manufacturing (or the Toyota Production System TPS), and other kaizen method will be applied to solve the problem. I will explain it in future session. At same time, we will have to coach and create a basic path for building new corporation strategy. For this, we must first discuss about Sales Strategy, not all company have well-planned strategies. What I meant is most of them depend on past experiences and glory stories. I will explain in future session how to create Sales Strategy by first understanding client,market, competitor. I think it will be useful for SME companies.


3) Stage 3 :Organization Innovation
Organizational innovation refers to new ways work can be organized　and accomplished within an organization to encourage and promote competitive advantage. First and Second stages is the fundamental stage to revitalize the organization.　The companies that can clear these two stages, already have the abilities to compete in global market.　These two stages are based on bottom-up activities. Top-down strategies also an important factor to innovate the management systems. At the second stage, Management Layer would already noticed the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. They would also realized the elements and abilities needed to satisfy their clients as well as the market. Therefore, we will be able to reconstruct the organizations that have accomplished our management strategies. Organizational innovation encourages individuals to think independently and creatively in applying personal knowledge to organizational challenges. Therefore, organizational innovation requires a culture of innovation that supports new ideas, processes and generally new ways of "doing business".


4) Stage 4 :Management Innovation
The road to organizational innovation lies in the ability to impart new knowledge to company's employees and in the application of that knowledge. Knowledge should be used for new ways of thinking, and as a stepping stone to creativity and towards changes and innovations. New Organization will speed-up the process to synchronize with the market's needs. At this stage every organization will be able to create their own business model in order to survive the competition. At this stage the company is already able to establish Sales,Manufacturing,Supply Chain,Logistic and Quality Control Strategies.They will be able to explore their technologies and by combining it they will be able to create new domains for the business.  

[1]  Alasdair A. K. White "From Comfort Zone to Performance Management". 

Why do we have to innovate the managemant system ?

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all...May all your wishes come true.

As I have mentioned earlier in my previous article, in the globalization era, the globe is becoming smaller for business market. The pace of changes have become so rapid that it took a different type of firms to be dominant and marked entirely new era of business. Whether we realize it or not, each and every company compete directly or indirectly in global economy market.

The development in telecomunication technologies give us the facilities to get connected to anyone over the world, and also make it easier to transfer money or capital to any countries. The education system creates the generation that have their own will to move further, to own a car, house and have nice happy life. This is the basic need for most of the people now.

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs there is five stage of needs such as Physiological needs, Safety needs, Love and belonging, Esteem and Self-actualization. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid, with the largest and most fundamental levels of needs at the bottom, and the need for self-actualization at the top. Let us think about people in the world, most of them moving towards upper level. Therefore these kind of needs create huge energy to think and work hard. For me these energies are the root for global competition. 

The boundaries of Developed Countries, Developing Countries, Third World Country is getting more fragile. Of course in the sense of economic activities there are clear definition to value each country`s level. However what I meant here is about gap in living standards in each country.In every country the gap between rich and poor getting wider. Even few years ago, China is the biggest labour market for production but now China itself already grown into a giant consumer market.

So no matter we are in Well Developed Countries or Developing Countries, without strategies and tactics to survive in global market we will be eliminated. Most companies even do not know who are their real competitors. Except some excellent companies, most companies are like sailing in dark night without possessing any compass. Therefore in global market we have unspecified large number of people or organization that will become our clients that will give us business chances and competitors that will become threat to our business.

So the point is the "People". No matter what theory we use, dont forget our clients, stock holders, workers, vendors are the "People". Most of people who read this sentence will say [Of course!], but in real business world it is not. In order to keep our existence in market we must create a management system that Synchronize with global market changes that means handling peoples` needs changes. Therefore basic is to understand fundamental of people needs and thoughts.

If I am a worker what I need in order to be happy in my life ?

What is the management system that will make me happy which at the same time having more money and time as well as having quality life with my family? As we all know there is no specific answer to that question.

There is time when some excellent manager or individual with great ideas make companies prosper. However the new era need speedy and multi-dimensional ideas that requires whole system element work as a team for it. Each system elements must have vision and clear mission to keep making profit. It is important to establish a system to make every person in your organization applying their brain (ability) to make companies prosper and in return they will be happy with their salary/bonus and proper holidays. It is a simple thing to say but really difficult to do.