Workplace Organization and the Five S’s

Workplace Organization and the Five S’s

On the appointed Monday morning, I arrived at the factory ready for confrontation. In fact, I was prepared for several confrontations. I walked into the training center guided by Celia and began setting the room up for the week’s training. I had planned on conducting the workshop as five eight-hour sessions, two of which would be used to actually work on making changes. I would start the class with some introductions and then head right into the training with a discussion on the identification and elimination of waste.

As the class participants—a team of workers on the main factory line—began to arrive, I realized that my planning was a joke. When the first person arrived, he plopped into his seat and simultaneously

threw his clipboard across the table in front of him. I tried to shake his hand, but he just grunted and turned away. This behavior was repeated several times over the next few minutes, until I had a total

of 10 sullen people sitting before me with expressions somewhere between anger and pity.

OK, so much for structured classroom interaction! There was no way I could direct these people until they said what was on their minds.

I began the session by introducing myself and telling some really lame jokes. Next, I asked each of them to take a few minutes to talk among themselves and find out something new about each of the

people in the room. They started off slowly, but before too long they were talking quite candidly and grew pretty animated when they were discussing anything other than SG.

Of course, every time I tried to join the conversations, they clammed up. Being the intuitively sensitive person that I am, it took only several dozen of these false starts before I eventually got wise

enough to sit on a table at the front of the room and keep my mouth shut.

After about an hour of classroom interaction, I asked if anyone needed a smoke break. More than half the class growled, “Yeah,” so I told them to take 15 minutes and we’d get started.

Nearly 30 minutes later, I finally got everyone back into the room and started trying to get them to talk. My first few attempts didn’t go very well. I was starting to feel pretty frustrated. Before long I was feeling sweat run down my back and I could hear my voice start to quiver.

These people were more than upset; they were downright pissed off! They weren’t happy about having an outsider trying to tell them what to do.

The only woman in the group finally took pity on me and stood up to discuss what she had found out about her classmates. She introduced one young man in the class and explained to me that he was

the cherry pit spitting champion of his county. It was comic, but the contribution broke the ice for the rest of the group—or at least cracked the ice a little.

By the end of the introductions, we were a little more relaxed, but not to the point I had hoped for. For the first half of the day, we spent more time on smoke breaks than working. But since they appeared to be as uncomfortable as I was, I decided to let it slide.

Just after lunch I noticed Sid ducking into the back of the room. I acted like I didn’t see him there and hoped that no one else saw him.

I just kept moving through the beginning of my talk on quality, hoping to increase the discussion among the members of the class.

But they noticed “the suit” in the room, and they completely shut down. He just sat and shook his head. I got the impression he was thinking that he had known this wouldn’t work. More importantly, I

figured he was probably right.

After he left the room, the workers relaxed noticeably and I said, “Man, that sucked.”

They did a double take and asked me what I was talking about. Many of the participants had no idea who Sid was because they had never met him.

I explained to them who he was and that he had asked me to help out because Sid realized that so many of their processes were awful. The participants seemed shocked to hear this.

The outgoing woman who had spoken up earlier, Michelle, said, “You mean he knows how bad things are getting here? We didn’t think he had a clue.”

I explained the concerns I had discussed with Sid on my first visit to the facility. I also told them he’d agreed to allow me into the facility for one week to see if we could make a difference. Last, I shared

with the group my discovery that Sid was convinced that the employees would not be willing to work to make the changes.

For a split second, I was pretty sure they were about to kill me. Then they opened up in a flood of conversation. “Why should we help?” “What are we supposed to do?” “How will this help us?” And

on and on .… For the rest of the day, we spent our time discussing what changes were possible and giving examples of how we could improve their processes.

I explained the seven types of waste and how to identify them in the work- place. They spent about half an hour listing examples of each of the elements in their own work process, a total of 21 examples of areas in which they could eliminate excess from the process. I also spent some time talking about workplace organization, introducing the Five S’s:

1. Sifting

2. Sorting

3. Sweeping and Washing

4. Standardizing

5. Self-Discipline

Next we discussed how the Five S process would improve safety and workflow and allow them to better manage the process as a whole. We also discussed how we could reduce the costs associated

with the rework caused by not controlling the process inputs.

As we went deeper into this discussion, they opened up and provided one idea after another for improving their work area. The group agreed to start the next morning’s session by touring their work area and teaching me the process as it was currently performed.

In the last 15 minutes of the day, Sid ducked back into the room and listened. As the employees filed out, they passed Sid with quiet greetings and reserved smiles. Sid looked like he was in shock.

Immediately after the employees had left the room, Sid looked at me and said, “What did you do, drug those guys?” I smiled and said, “Nope. I just talked to them and, more importantly, I listened.”

We started the next day’s session at 7 a.m. on the factory floor. The group took about an hour to show me the process and how the work flowed through their area—or, more accurately, how the work didn’t flow. As I went around reading inventory tags on the raw materials, I was surprised to see dates going back over five years. There was so much inventory it was impossible to determine what was actually needed in their process. There were spare tools and fixtures everywhere and nothing seemed to be attached to any particular area of the process.

First Impressions of the Plant

First Impressions of the Plant

When I sat down to collect my thoughts, I realized that my impressions were even worse than I had consciously realized. Without the threat of George knocking me on my butt, the truth of what I saw

came out pretty freely—and the truth was ugly. The word “ugly” stuck in my mind.

I remembered that when I got started in consulting, a friend in the business told me, “You never want to tell the customer he has an ugly baby.” That was his not-so-charming way of saying that you don’t badmouth the customers’ processes or initiatives—especially when they’ve attempted to instill a positive improvement.

I tried to keep that in mind as I prepared my notes, but it wasn’t easy. Sid had an ugly baby.

At exactly 4:30 p.m., I walked out of the conference room and headed toward Sid’s office. About 20 feet from the door, George called from behind, “Hey, Sam, wait up.” He jogged the few steps to catch up with me and said, “Hope you don’t mind, but Sid asked me to join you.”

Sid was waiting and looked eager, so I began talking as soon as we had exchanged pleasantries. Now, sensitive I’m not. If I were, I would have noticed the look on both their faces as I waded deeper into my impressions of the facility. When I was finished running down my laundry list of things that were wrong, I looked up at them and was genuinely amazed by the shocked look in their eyes.

I immediately looked down at the scribbled notes in my lap to see what I had said that would have been so devastating to the two men:

-->The plant is filthy.

-->There’s no control of parts that don’t meet specifications.

-->There’s no semblance of lot control for work in process or finished goods inventory.

-->Operators are performing their work sloppily and to no particular standard.

-->There’s no apparent flow to the processes.

-->There’s so much inventory that no one knows what they have and what they don’t have.

-->There are excess and broken tooling and fixtures scattered everywhere in the plant.

-->The lighting is very poor and work conditions are unsafe.

-->All raw inventory is contaminated and there is no sure method of controlling inventory. Raw material is stored alongside the production lines and appears to have been there for years.

-->Material handlers are running all over the plant with nothing on their forklifts, wasting gas and endangering each other and the process operators.

-->Hazardous material is not stored properly.

-->There are years of inventory on trailers out back. (This is what I was afraid of when I parked earlier in the day.)

-->The few control charts scattered about the plant are outdated by months—but no one is even looking at them anyway, thank goodness!

-->The processes are producing in batches because the setup times are so long.

-->The last processes before final inspection are being starved for part assemblies for hours because of the batch and queue methods.

-->People are standing all over the plant waiting for something to do.

Uh-oh, maybe I’d gone a little overboard! Sometimes I have a tendency to forget that I’m talking about someone’s business when I give my impressions.

From the looks on their faces, I may have just stepped over the line. I slowly moved my chair a little closer to the door. As an afterthought, I finished my onslaught with “Look at it this way: knowing there’s a problem is half the battle.”

Sid took a minute before he responded. I’m sure he was clenching and unclenching his fists under the desk.

“Sam, I’m not sure you remember why I asked you here.” He cleared his throat and continued. “I’m not looking for your opinion of the state of my company.” More throat clearing. “I just wanted to

know which machine I should purchase to make sure I meet my upcoming customer demands.”

My response to this comment made my earlier litany look like child’s play. I looked directly at him and spoke once more without my “fit for human interaction filter” in the “on” position.

“Look, Sid, if you keep up the way you’re going out there today, you won’t have any problems meeting your customer demands— because you won’t have any customers.”

Before Sid could get in his next comment, I decided to finish my thoughts.

I don’t know exactly the words I used, but they were something to the extent that SG’s quality had to be below one sigma with all the things they were doing wrong and that their inventory turns were a joke.

They looked puzzled. After I paused to let it sink in, I made my point. “One sigma,” I explained, “means your yield is only 31%. Most company operate at between three and four sigma, which means yields around 93% to 99%.”

Then I pointed out that if they wanted to compete in today’s market, they were going to have to learn to be more efficient and focus on eliminating waste from all their processes, because if their manufacturing processes were bad, I had to assume that their transactional processes were in even worse shape. Of course we couldn’t be sure because everything was in such disarray that we couldn’t even tell how bad things were. On top of all that, the employees were so pissed off that they wouldn’t tell you if the building was burning down.

George finally shook himself out of shock and said there was no way I could tell all those things from a brief 45-minute walk through the plant. He also mumbled under his breath that he should have

known I’d try to dig in and get paid my daily rate forever….

Ignoring the last comment, I conceded that George might be right about my quick assessment. So I asked some basic questions:

-->What are your inventory turns?

-->What is your overall quality level?

-->Do you measure quality as a percentage or as parts per million?

-->Do you final-inspect every product you build?

-->How do you determine your inventory levels?

-->What does your preventive maintenance schedule look like?

-->What is your operator interface? How does an operator know the state of the process?

-->Are your margins on some products negative?

-->Do your employees understand the concept of waste?

-->When was the last employee suggestion for improvement made?

-->How often do you conduct a physical inventory?

-->What is the rate of over/under you typically see in inventory?

As George responded to each of my questions (usually failing to provide an answer other than “I don’t know”), a look of caution began to form on Sid’s face.

By the time the questions were through, Sid looked at me and said, “I’ve heard about that sigma stuff and inventory turns, but I don’t really know much about any of it. So what should I do?”

The answer I gave really surprised Sid—and I think it pissed him off as well.

“We need to get organized out there.

“Just give me a week and I’ll work with one of your teams and we’ll start a program of Five S in your facility. I’ll teach them what Five S means and how it applies, then work with them to establish the principles in their work area. After that, we can select some of your more dedicated people and have them teach the technique across the organization.”

At this George started forming a smile that grew until finally he was grinning from ear to ear.

“Yeah,” he said, I’m gonna love seeing you try to get these guys to clean up their work area. There’s no way in hell they’ll ever do it. We can’t even get them to walk to the trash can at lunch time. They just leave everything laying all over the snack bar for someone else to clean up.”

George went on to explain how SG had to hire a cleanup crew to go behind every shift and pick up after the employees in order to keep the health inspector off their case.

I gave George my “I understand” nod and said, “Just give me the week and tell me where you want to start. If I fail, you pay for one week and I’ll be gone. If I succeed, you may find that we can increase

your capacity and margins considerably without any capital expense— and that would be a good thing.”

George started to argue, but Sid held up his hand and said, “You’ve got a deal. Tell us which day you want to start; we’ll have the training room set up and the people there for you. You have one week to make this Five S thing work. Then we’ll meet with the team you’re training and discuss the results.”

George just shook his head and looked at the floor.

After giving Celia the date I wanted to have the first session and shaking hands with Sid and George, I walked out to the car to drive home. It was already dark outside and I had a lot of planning and

thinking to do.

Key Points

-->To compete in today’s market, companies must learn to be more efficient and focus on eliminating waste from all their processes.

-->A good way to begin a Lean Six Sigma initiative is with a program of Five S.

First Impressions of the Plant

First Impressions of the Plant

As we drove up to the plant, my first thought was that Sid had done a good job picking out a location for his company. Instead of one single building, SG consisted of two moderately sized side-by-side structures. The two facilities were connected by a paved path with trees and shrubs planted on either side to make the walk between the two buildings more pleasant. The landscaping was nicely manicured and reminded me more of a park than a manufacturing location. The buildings were clean and the lawns were groomed professionally. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, “OK, I could spend a week or two working in this environment.”

As Sid motioned me into the visitors’ parking area, I caught sight of something that might have been a problem, but I decided to keep my thoughts to myself until I saw the rest of the plant. Still . . . in the

back of my mind was this nagging thought: “Why would an organization this small need to have all those tractor trailers parked back there? There’s no way they can be moving that much material in and out of this place.”

As soon as we hit the front door, a small, middle-aged woman in a snappy business suit met Sid. Before I was even introduced, it became apparent that this was his secretary.

I knew I’d better make a good impression on this woman, because I’ve found over the past few years that plant managers and business owners think they run the place, but the secretaries and administrative assistants are the ones who really keep things going. If I wanted to do any type of business with Sid, I’d better make sure this woman liked me. In order to make sure, I slapped on my best smile and extended my hand to introduce myself.

“Hello, ma’am, my name is Sam,” I said, “and who might you be?”

The no-nonsense look she gave me said she wasn’t going to decide she liked me just because I smiled and took the initiative to introduce myself. Within the blink of an eye, her words confirmed what her look suggested.

“Well, I might be Joan of Arc,” she said without the slightest hint of a smile, “but I am Celia Gordon. I’m Sid’s executive administrative assistant.”

“Damn,” I thought. “That didn’t go as planned.” Luckily she was in a hurry and scurried away without even a whisper of goodbye.

Sid just looked at me and shrugged.

“She’s always like that. Just ignore it and she’ll warm up to you.”

I didn’t say a word; I just smiled. I wanted to tell him that it would take a bottle of acetylene and a blowtorch to warm that woman up. But, like I said, I didn’t say a word. I just stood there and smiled.

Then we walked to Sid’s office. There Sid introduced me to George, the manufacturing supervisor. This was the same George he had mentioned in the restaurant, who had told him to buy the new

piece of equipment.

George shook my hand and said, “Pleased to meet you,” and we entered Sid’s office.

As we sat across the table from each other, George began telling me the history of Sid’s business. It was evident that George was very proud of the fact that he was one of only a handful of people left in the company who had been there since the very beginning.

As George went through the history of SG, I realized that he had good reason to be proud. In under 30 years, the company had grown from two guys machining parts to an organization with over 500 fulltime employees and more than $300 million in sales annually. They were well respected in their industry, although recent quality concerns and late delivery issues were causing problems with some of their biggest contracted customers. These problems, however, could be fixed with the new equipment. George had no doubts about that, and I certainly wasn’t going to say otherwise—at least not yet.

As George wrapped up his history lesson, Sid suggested that I might like to see the facility. George was between production meetings and said he would be happy to show me the plant.

As we walked into the facility, I had mixed emotions. The consultant part of me was screaming at all the things I saw wrong and I felt an immediate urge to point everything out to George as we passed

by. But the (semi) human side of me screamed that this would be wrong. Looking at him and listening as he showed me the various processes throughout the plant, I decided to listen to my human side for a change.

One thing that I couldn’t be quiet about, though, was the level of negativity I sensed as we walked through the plant. As we passed, operators stared at us or just scowled. I wasn’t sure which I found

more unsettling.

I asked George if SG had some labor problems and he just nodded. I decided to take the issue up with Sid later, after the tour.

When the plant tour was over, George led me back to Sid’s office and shook my hand at the door.

“I’m really glad you came to have a look at the place,” he said. “Since Sid will have the opinion of an outsider now, I’m sure he’ll listen to me.”

Then George walked away. I realized that he was telling me that when I gave Sid the same recommendation as he had, Sid would buckle and get the new equipment. Whoops! This was going to be a problem, because I had no intention of advising Sid that he needed a new piece of equipment. Not yet, anyway.

As I slowly opened the door to Sid’s office, I saw that he was on the phone. He motioned me to come in and have a seat. I sat down and began looking around at the plaques on the wall. Several were from

suppliers for outstanding quality, cost reduction, and on-time delivery— but none of the plaques had a date less than 10 years old. Not a very good sign, but I didn’t say a word about it to Sid as he hung up the phone. I just made a mental note.

“Well, waddya think?” he asked me. “Can I get by with the smaller machine or should I just bite the bullet and go all out?”

Sid spoke with such blatant pride that I almost didn’t have the heart to tell him what I’d seen. Almost.

“You know, Sid, it may be possible to raise your quality and capacity levels without buying new equipment. If you would like, I can take a few minutes to give you my impressions of the facility. Then we can talk about some less expensive ways to bring your quality up and your cycle time down using the equipment you already have.”

Sid smiled and said he liked the sound of that, so I asked him for a few minutes to get my thoughts together and write some notes. Sid said that was perfect, because he had a meeting scheduled that should take about an hour. He asked Celia to find me a quiet space so I could work and said he’d meet me back in his office around 4:30.

Judging by our first greeting, I expected Celia to put me somewhere in a cleaning closest filled with plenty of toxic chemicals. Instead, she showed me to a small conference room with a visitors’ desk and a phone and told me where I could find the rest rooms, the snack bar, and smoking areas. A definite improvement from earlier in the day and I even thought I saw a hint of a smile as she turned to leave. But it was probably just the light playing tricks on me.

Lean Six Sigma Class SG, Inc.

SG, Inc.

A few months back, a man named Sid Glick, president of a manufacturing company called SG, Inc., phoned my office. He asked if I could have lunch with him to discuss a problem he was having at his plant.

We agreed to meet at his favorite home-cooking café. After the usual pleasantries, Sid blurted, “I called you, Ms. Micawh, because you were highly recommended by some colleagues of mine who told me that you know your stuff, that you’re a plant rat who can take care of the problem.”

Sid got straight to the point. I like that approach!

“Good. But please call me Sam.”

“OK, Sam,” he nodded, “here’s my situation. SG, Inc. manufactures machine components. We can make whatever parts our customers want—gears, valves, pistons, and so on—and we do assembly. I

won’t bore you with details at this point. Now, here it is: I’m considering purchasing a five-axis CNC machine to the tune of $1,200,000 or a smaller, four-axis machine for $750,000.”

I immediately imagined the two CNC machines side by side, with a big yellow price tag on each. (In case you’re not a “plant rat” like me, I should probably explain that CNC means “computer numerically controlled,” which just means that a machine tool is operated by a dedicated computer that has the capability to read computer codes and convert them into machine control and driving motor instructions.)

I listened attentively as Sid presented his situation.

“I would like you to evaluate my backlog, our part configurations, and the run rates on these machines and then help me to determine which would be the smarter buy.”

He slid a file across the table to me.

It was refreshing to meet a person who had apparently done his homework. Sid had determined the root cause of his capacity problem and had narrowed his options to these two machines. I agreed to do lunch with him the following Tuesday.

I reviewed all of the materials Sid gave me, in just an hour or so. I guess I should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy. But sometimes even a hardened consultant like me just wants to believe.

After we met at the restaurant, sat down, and ordered, Sid jumped right into it.

“OK, Sam, you’ve read all the numbers, so you know about our situation and the two machines. Now, give me your best guess—the five or the four?”

“I would rather not guess, Sid. That’s just not my style.”

I paused. Sid seemed to appreciate that I was candid and blunt, so I continued.

“I’d like to look at the plant and review the data that’s brought you to this point. Then, when I understand why you’re trying to decide between the five-axis or the four-axis, I can be sure of offering you the best advice I can give.”

Our sandwiches and coffee arrived and we started eating. Sid told me he would be glad to show me through the plant. But, he explained between bites, there was no specific data prompting the decision. In fact, he pointed out, that’s why he was consulting with me.

“Hmm,” I thought, chewing a little more slowly. “That doesn’t sound good.” But I let it pass—for now. I hoped that my silence would get more out of Sid at this point than any questions. The tactic

worked.

“Actually,” he continued, taking a sip of coffee, “it’s George who says we need a new machine.” He explained that George was the plant supervisor, who had been working at SG, Inc. for 26 years.

“George says that’s the only way we can reduce our backlog and start meeting delivery schedules. So,” he concluded, pushing his plate to the side, “that’s why I’ve asked you to help me decide between these two machines.”

“Oops!” I thought. SG, Inc. is about to decide on a million dollar capital expenditure based on “tribal knowledge,” with no data to substantiate the decision. My lunch suddenly became unsettled, so as we

were at the counter paying the lunch tab, I bought some antacids.

Key Points

It’s a sign of problems when management is making decisions without specific data to support them.

 “Tribal knowledge”—although it can be a starting point in making decisions—is generally not enough in inself for smart decisions, especially since this “knowledge” may be only a belief or a feeling or simply a hope.