The Results of Five S Implementation

The Results of Five S Implementation

T he team was ready on the morning of the presentation. They had chosen to type up a list of their accomplishments over the past few days and made copies for each of the managers in attendance. They also decided to position themselves around the meeting room in such a way so that the managers were forced to sit intermingled with the operations employees to foster open communication.

When the meeting started, I took just a minute to introduce the group to the managers and the team members took over from there. As the most vocal of the group, Michelle was “volunteered” to speak

for everyone. She was nervous, but her excitement provided her with the strength to get through the presentation.

Michelle started in a surprisingly challenging manner when she asked the managers, including Sid, “What the hell took you so long?” She then discussed what the team thought of the training and what

they’d learned. Next, she showed the before-and-after pictures. Finally, she wrapped up by reviewing the list of accomplishments; the rest of the team chimed in where they were needed.

The managers asked several questions and Michelle eventually told them that it would probably be easier to go out and physically review the changes. The difference was like night and day. Everything

was clean and well organized. The excess inventory was identified as waste. Excess walking and material moving had been eliminated from the process. Work in process flowed in a single-piece manner, which provided the employees with the opportunity to shut down the line when they observed a problem or had a concern about product quality.

Five S implementation is the first step toward a successful Six Sigma integration. It gets everyone on

board and excited about change and solving problems in the organization from within.

After the tour of the process, we retreated back into the meeting room for a wrap-up discussion. Sid was first to speak. He stood up and looked at the team.

“I’m pleasantly surprised.” Sid looked directly at George when he made his next comment.

“There were a lot of us in this company who really didn’t believe you guys would do this. None of us thought you would accomplish as much as you have. I have a new respect for my employees and I’m

embarrassed that it took an outside influence to bring this to light.”

Sid went on to talk with his employees in an open and honest dialog that included answering some basic questions about the state of the business. The operators were eager to provide more improvement suggestions and the entire room agreed at the end of the meeting to continue to apply the learnings from the past week to the rest of the processes in the facility.

Sid asked me to stay and talk with him after wrapping up the meeting and he invited George to join us. We ended the discussion by agreeing that I would return the next week and we would take it

one week at a time for the next month or so. Sid and George were starting to believe that we could seriously reduce costs without large capital investments.

As I left the office, Sid asked me to bring in some books on Six Sigma and Lean that I had mentioned previously so that he could begin to better understand the concepts.

Back in the car, I was glad to be going home because I was completely exhausted from my week with Sid’s employees—but I was also glad to be coming back the next week. There was work to do!

Key Points

->Implementing the Five S’s slowly starts the ball rolling toward Six Sigma integration. Employees get excited and upper-level managers begin to see how to change things from within.

->Dialogue between management and employees is an essential part of implementing changes in any organization.