The 5S Program

A structured program to systematically achieve cleanliness and standardization.

Introduction

The 5S Process, or simply 5S, is a structured program to systematically achieve total organization, cleanliness, and standardization in the workplace. A well-organized workplace results in a safer, more efficient, and more productive operation. It boosts the morale of the workers, promoting a sense of pride in their work and ownership of their responsibilities.

By assigning everything a location, time is not wasted by looking for things and it is quickly obvious when something is missing from its designated location. The benefits come from deciding what should be kept, where it should be kept, and how it should be stored. This decision making process should lead to a dialog which can build a clear understanding between employees, of how work should be done. It also instills ownership of the process in each employee. As a result, it is often executed in tandem with standardization of work processes (SOP, ISO).

The Five S's

Five S stands for five Japanese words that start with the letter 'S': Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, and Shitsuke (Table 1). An equivalent set of five 'S' words in English has been suggested:

Sometimes an extra S or two is added to the original set (e.g. 5S Plus, 6S, 7S). The most common additional S is for Safety, with some organizations using Security as the seventh S. We think that the original set deserves to be preserved, because of its simplicity and ease of implementation. Safety and security should be side-benefits of disciplined housekeeping, but are much larger topics in the hospital environment, and deserve to be developed as independent programs.

Table 1. Five S Terminology
Japanese Chinese English Examples
Seiri 整理 Zhěnglǐ 整理 / 整理 Tidiness Separating. Throw away all rubbish and unrelated materials in the workplace, keep only essential items. Everything else is stored or discarded. This leads to fewer hazards and less clutter to interfere with productive work.
Seiton 整頓 Zhěngdùn 整頓 / 整頓 Orderliness Sorting. Set everything in its proper place for quick retrieval and storage. Arrange tools and equipment in an order that promotes work flow. They should be kept where they will be used, and the process should be reorganized so that extra motion is eliminated.
整掃: Seisō Zhěng sǎo 整掃 / 整扫 Cleanliness Cleaning. Clean the workplace; everyone should be a janitor. Keep the workplace clean as well as neat. Cleaning is a daily activity. At the end of each shift, the work area is cleaned up and everything restored to its place. Maintaining cleanliness should be part of the daily work — not an occasional activity initiated when things get too messy.
Seiketsu 整潔 Zhěngjié 整潔 / 整洁 Standardized clean-up Standardize the way of maintaining cleanliness. Standardize work practices and cleanliness, operating in a consistent fashion. Everyone knows exactly what his or her responsibilities are.
Shitsuke 躾 [1] Jìlǜ 紀律 / 素养 Sùyǎng Discipline Sustaining. Do 'Five S' daily - make it a way of life; this also means 'commitment'. Maintain standards: once the first 4S's have been established, they become the new way to operate. Maintain the focus on this new way of operating, and do not allow a gradual decline back to the old ways of operating.

Footnote [1]:
The Japanese and the Koreans borrowed Chinese characters ( 漢字 kanji ) to establish their respective writing systems. The Chinese language, however, is quite different from Japanese and Korean. Chinese characters originated in China convey Chinese traditions and culture, therefore the Chinese are content with the kanji or writing symbols they have. But kanji sometimes exceeds the needs of the Koreans and the Japanese in their own cultural contexts, while at other times the characters are insufficient. So both the Koreans and the Japanese developed independent syllabaries to supplement kanji for effective communication in their own cultural context.

Shitsuke is a good example. Originally there was no kanji equivalent for the idea conveyed by the term so the Japanese invented one for it which expresses the basic concept 'make oneself beautiful' [躾 = a new character formed by the combination of {body}+{beautiful}]. The word sometimes means 'education' in general, but more often the learning of Japanese social manners. In primary school this is called moral education (Dōtoku kyōiku).

Source: Terashima, Shinichi. (1987, September 20). Social mechanism of honorifics The Japan Times Post on the Web. Retrieved July 1, 1997.

The first step of the 5S process, [seiri], refers to the act of throwing away all unwanted, unnecessary, and unrelated materials in the workplace. It is about separating the things that are necessary for the job from those that are not. It involves keeping the number of necessary items as low as possible and maintaining them at a convenient location.

People involved in [seiri] must not feel sorry about having to throw away things. It is important to save things, but it is just as important to throw things out. Most important of all, you must know what to discard, what to save, and how to save things so they can be accessed later. Many people just hate to throw things away because, they say, You just never know when you will need them again.

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. Using [seiri], you would ask questions such as: Can tasks be simplified? Is information up to date? Have we made maximum effective use of space? Do we label (identify) items? Do we dispose of waste frequently? Because of [seiri], simplification of tasks, effective use of space, and careful purchase of items follow.

Some typical areas where [seiri] might be applied include work in process, unnecessary tools, unused machinery, defective products, and paper and documents.

Seiton, orderliness or neatness is basically about efficiency. How quickly can you get the things you need, and how quickly can you put them away? Just making an arbitrary decision on where things go is not going to make you any faster. Instead, you have to analyze why getting things out and putting them away takes so long. You have to study this issue with respect to both people who use items frequently and those who use them only occasionally. You have to devise a system that everyone can understand. If everyone has quick access to an item or materials, work flow becomes efficient, and the worker becomes productive.

With seiton, workers must allocate a place for everything. Then they must keep everything in its allocated place. Items that are used on a regular basis must be kept close at hand. All locations should be labeled to identify what items should be where. 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.

An example of orderliness is keeping tools mounted on a peg board instead of storing them in a drawer. With this approach, an outline of each tool is drawn on the peg board so everyone can see which tools are in use. Workers return each tool to its proper location once they have finished using it.

Objectives:

Guidelines:

The seiso principle says, Everyone is a janitor. Seiso consists of cleaning up the workplace and giving it a shine. Cleaning must be done by everyone in the organization, from the facility manager to the custodial staff.

In an office or factory, you might start by graphing out the individual areas of cleaning responsibility. Every area of the workplace assigned to a person or group of persons for cleaning. No area should be left uncleaned. Everyone should see the workplace through the eyes of a visitor — always thinking if it is clean enough to make a good impression. In doing this, it is important that all assignments be absolutely clear and that there are no undefined, unallocated, or gray areas. Unless each and every person takes this responsibility to heart and accepts personal responsibility, you are not going to get anywhere.

At the beginning of a seiso program, some companies put glossy coatings on the floors and paint their machines and walls to promote cleanliness. Once the workplace has been refreshed in this way, it becomes unacceptable to allow, say, a machine to leak oil onto the floor. If such a leak occurs, workers clean it promptly. If the machine continues to leak, the workers are motivated to ask why the leak keeps recurring, and to have the machine repaired to prevent further leaking. The machine will work better after it is repaired and the area will remain clean and safe to walk in.

Concerns about cleanliness should extend to both the inside work area and areas outside the facility. It should include offices and all common spaces.

Every worker should be trained to see the workplace through the eyes of others who pass through it (including customers). What would they think? How would the area look to them? Workers must be educated to check tools and equipment regularly, and to seek ways to always improve working areas. This work should never be considered done.

Management should continually display notices about improvements made in each area of the plant, including charts and photographs.

Objectives:

Guidelines:

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. Standardized clean-up means continually repeatedly maintaining your tidiness, orderliness, and cleanliness. As such, it embraces both personal cleanliness and the cleanliness of the environment inside and outside the facility. Personnel must therefore practice seiketsu starting with their personal tidiness. The emphasis is on a technique referred to as visual management. Innovation and total visual management are used to attain and maintain standardized conditions so that you can always act quickly when necessary.

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. Color management is used not only for color-coding, but also to create more pleasant work environments. More workers are now opting for white and other light-colored clothes. Because these clothes show dirt quickly, they provide a good indicator of how clean the workplace is. They highlight the need for cleaning.

Workers should make it a habit to be clean and tidy (starting with themselves). Here are some things that workers have done under the heading of standardized clean-up:

The last step of 5S, Shitsuke, means Discipline. Discipline means doing things the way they are supposed to be done. The emphasis is on creating good work habits. By teaching everyone what needs to be done and having everyone practice it, bad habits can be broken and good ones formed.

Shitsuke denotes commitment to maintain orderliness and to practice the first 4 S as a way of life. The emphasis of shitsuke is elimination of bad habits and constant practice of good ones. Once true shitsuke is achieved, personnel voluntarily observe cleanliness and orderliness at all times, without having to be reminded by management.

Self-discipline is important because it reaches beyond what management can impose. If a worker does something only because he or she has been required to do it by a manager, there is a good chance that the worker may have to be reminded again (and again) to do the same thing). (Think of your mother demanding that you keep your room clean when you were a teenager). By contrast, self-discipline more or less guarantees the continuity of a daily routine. Self-discipline basically says follow procedures in the workplace.

Planning For Implementation

5S can be implemented in different manners. However, the following PDCA procedure is quite effective:

Five S, like all other quality and pollution prevention initiatives, requires commitment from top management and participation by everyone in the organization. The program cannot simply be implemented by decree. It requires planning, and the plan will differ from facility to facility. It is very important to avoid the one-size-fits-all approach.

Five S is best implemented very gradually — often over a one- or two-year period of time. Rushing into it is sure to kill the program. Because implementing five S can be such a big job, consider proceeding department-by-department or building-by-building.

Before embarking on Five S, it is useful to identify and address any factors that may make the program difficult to implement. Preliminary assessment should look at the tools that are needed to complete Five S projects, such as special shelves, stands, instructional labels, and placement figures.

With the Five S approach, maintenance needs to be upgraded to preventive or predictive mode. This starts by fixing defective machinery, instituting measures to prevent leakage of fluids, and initiating the use of computerized maintenance management system software. Any plans necessary for changing machine and process layout should also be made at this time.

An oversight team that includes the plant manager and some of the area workers should coordinate the preliminary work. In order to operate more smoothly, someone should facilitate the team who is familiar with concepts of team building and with use of problem solving and decision making techniques. The team should also be trained on the Five S philosophy. Once the preliminary work is completed, plans describing implementation of the Five S campaign should be prepared and released.

At this point, management should endorse the formal Five S plan and dates should be set for implementation. It may be best to implement the program when the area to be affected is going through a slow time or is scheduled for a planned shutdown.

It is useful to hold a workshop for the employees who will be serving as five S facilitators during implementation. These facilitators should be separate from those employees who are serving on the facility Five S oversight team. In addition, all employees in the affected area should be familiarized with Five S techniques and with the implementation plan.

It can also be a good idea to take photos showing what the work area is like at the start of the Five S program. These photos can later be used to illustrate the progress that has been made. The facility may also want to establish an award program to provide incentives to workers. If multiple departments are involved, a prize can be given to the best implementation team.

The Five S team should begin by emphasizing tidiness (organization), including throwing away all the things that they no longer need. This is the time to make any necessary work flow changes, such as repositioning machinery and work stations. It is important that workers be allowed to modify the new configuration so that it works well for them. The team should make sure that the planned changes are more efficient than what the workers had before.

Next comes the orderliness (neatness) effort. Everything should be labeled and assigned a location. All parts and tools need to be placed so as to be within reach of workers. It must also be easy to restock the parts for optimal work flow. Workers must be given time to get used to the new configuration. In addition, the Five S team should make sure that there is no backsliding with regard to tidiness.

Finally, the department is ready for the cleaning stage. At this point, the work area is cleaned and the walls and machines are painted. The floor should be sealed so that it looks clean and shiny. Stripes should be painted on the floor to mark passageways and standing areas for each machine. The team should then take pictures of the newly cleaned work area to remind everyone of just how good it looks.

Next, procedures for standardized cleanup are prepared and the workplace begins to use visual management techniques. A good starting point is the creation of visually identified team territories. Work teams need to have a place they can identify as their own — a place to meet, to review indicators of the status of their work, to post information, and to display personal touches and symbols of their team identity, as well as examples of their product.

Visual documentation should be drawn up expressing the standard way to do the job. This helps ensure that both new and experienced workers will be able to produce consistent results. Visual process indicators also can be used to show the actual game score — that is, the facility's objectives and how well the team is meeting them. Making this information visible and available to all objectifies it. When something goes wrong, this encourages both supervisors and workers to look at the situation and examine ways to improve it, rather than to assign blame.

At this stage, the Five S team is ready to focus on discipline. Without discipline, it is impossible to maintain consistent standards of quality, safety, clean production/pollution prevention, and process operation. The more closely workers are able to follow manufacturing standards, procedures, and rules, the less likelihood there is of errors, defects, waste, and accidents.

However, trying to impose discipline in an authoritarian manner will not get far in most firms today. Rather, people should be motivated to want to follow the rules because the workplace rules are actually a set of shared values. Shared values are achieved by coaching and team participation, not by orders and penalties. Implementation of Five S provides coaching by getting the workers to do the simple things right. Buying in to these basic values is the essential starting point to developing an excellent company.

It is important to keep records not only of decisions made during Five S implementation, but also of the problems encountered, actions taken, and results achieved. Only if past practices are recorded will people have a sense of progress and improvements over time. The Five S oversight team should keep close tabs on this information and review it during each of its progress meetings. Records should include photographs, videos, check sheets, and a museum room that can be used to remind people of what things were like before the changes were made. All records can be kept in the museum room after the work has been completed.

These records also allow the oversight team to review and plan for the next department's implementation of Five S.

Five S activities are all directed at eliminating waste and effecting continuous improvement in the workplace. Right from the beginning, team members will probably identify lots of Five S activities that need to be done. As the team moves on, they will notice that there are always additional Five S problems to solve. These problems can be addressed using the Systems approach. The team will find that the problems they identify are not insurmountable if considered and solved one at a time.

A number of different Five S training modules may be required. These include awareness training, management briefings, facilitator training, and Systems Approach training. Training approaches can include distance learning techniques (such as interactive CD-ROM) and actual lectures. It is important to have interaction during these training sessions.

With Five S, it is essential that people be trained to devise and implement their own solutions. Progress that is not self-sustaining (i.e. the kind that always has to rely on outside help) is not real progress. It is also important that workers understand maintenance techniques and know how to use computers to create charts and graphs. Some companies also invest in training all their teams in statistical process control. Interestingly enough, you will find that the more problems workers are capable of solving, the more problems they will spot. Process mapping is a great tool for workers to use to find opportunities for improvement as they proceed in the program.

Training should also include department-wide and/or company-wide meetings where people can announce their results. This provides an incentive to workers. In addition, the exchange of ideas and information at these meetings helps keep everybody fresh and allows workers to learn from one another.

Workplace evaluations and other means are needed to keep everyone abreast of what is happening with the Five S program and to spot concerns before they develop into major problems. In essence, you need to devise ways that will get everybody involved in the process. The five S oversight team should receive reports from each department. Audit worksheets can be devised and used to keep records of progress. Evaluation criteria can be devised by the oversight team and used throughout the implementation process.

Two other techniques that some companies use during Five S implementation are patrols and cross-evaluations. Patrols go around to the various departments and point out problems. This is similar to managing by walking around, but the patrol members do not need to be management personnel. They simply need to know what to look for and have the authority to point out problems that should be worked on. Above all, they need to know what questions to ask. Cross-evaluations involve having teams offer advice to other teams that are working on similar problems. One advantage of this approach is the opportunity to exchange ideas and benefit from mutual learning.

The objective of all Five S evaluation techniques is to ensure that the implementation of the Five S program is conducive to a total quality environment.

Many organizations make some early 5S improvements and then slide back into their old ways of doing things. Other organizations continue to maintain their 5S programs for many years. What separates a successful 5S program from one that is headed for failure? The fifth S stands for sustain; if implemented completely, a 5S program will have longevity. There are three keys to successfully sustaining 5S: commitment, top management support, and performance measurement.

  1. Key #1: Commitment. The first key is to commit to all five S's. While this may appear to be obvious, sometimes people say: We are just going to implement 3S for now. We aren't ready for all five. Shitsuke is teaching an attitude of commitment towards any undertaking, inspiring pride and adherence to the established standards.
  2. Key #2: Top Management Support. The first and second keys go hand-in-hand. Commitment is not possible without top management's visible support for the program. All employees must believe that the organization has committed to the program. One way is to conduct quarterly 5S visits in which executives inspect each work area to 5S conditions and offer advice and support to the employees. Another effective method for demonstrating top management support is for executives to mandate and participate in visible promotion of 5S. Some ways to promote 5S include:
    • Designated 5S days: Select a day per month or per quarter to emphasize 5S throughout the organization.
    • Slogans: Select a 5S related slogan, post it in public areas throughout the plant, pass out shirts made up with the slogan to successful 5S teams, etc.
    • Public Announcements: In monthly or quarterly announcements/all-employee meetings, take some time to emphasize the importance of 5S.
    • Seminars: Have employees participate in seminars throughout the year. Some of these should be 5S related.
  3. Key #3: Performance Measurement and Reward System. The third key is to measure 5S performance in each work area and set up a reward system to reward teams that achieve 5S success. Organizations that have successful 5S programs measure their performance through weekly audits using checklists and score sheets. Results of the audits are posted in public areas. This creates an atmosphere of friendly competition and will help to instill pride in the teams you’ve set up. This measurement and competition should be combined with a reward system.

Doing the simple things right truly tests the determination of management over time. Facilities often find that high standards can be met for a while, but that workers drift back to old habits after a few months because managers stop enforcing the rules as strictly as they did at the beginning. At this point, facilities often opt for campaigns aimed at bringing workers back up to standard. But these campaigns rarely are effective.

Instead, it is better to involve everyone in the new disciplines so that they become the new norm for the facility - and it becomes abnormal to behave otherwise. Once workers internalize the concept of tidiness, for instance, having a messy work place is no longer acceptable.

Institutionalizing the new norms cannot be achieved without continuous and visible management leadership, which means much more management by walking about than perhaps was previously the case. It is important to first develop commitment and then support company workers in taking the initiative themselves. Introducing basic disciplines will prove to have been successful when all company employees are involved and standards improve over time. Managers must walk the talk in the implementation of five S.

Five S offers several key benefits. In general, the Five S approach:

Any program designed to reform a facility involves change. When making changes, it is always best to start with the basics. This way, attitudes can be worked on and improvements made at the same time.

References:

  1. Pojasek RB. Five S's: A tool that preparres an organization for change. Environmental Quality Management (Autumn 1999) pp.97-103. www.epa.gov/lean/