Sunday, October 26, 2008

Successful life with “Five- S”

How to follow "Five - S"(5-S) productivity concept

The “5-S”(five-S) is a well-known concept, which can be found in Japan. People of Japan use this concept to enhance their life. Mainly this concept used to improve the productivity of people and places. Now this concept spread all over the world.

Question : Where we can use this concept?

Answer : Anywhere you want.

This concept can be apply to anywhere,

  • To your wallet,
  • To your Office table,
  • To your Home,
  • Schools,
  • Factories,
  • Workshops,
  • Shops,
  • Farms,
  • Warehouses...etc.

What is “Five- S”(5- S)?

Why are we calling it as “Five- S”?
This concept consists of five steps, which are starts with English letter “S”.The five Japanese words in English looks like this,

Why “Five- S” (5-S) to you?

Today we are working with very busy environment. We are in hurry to complete our work. Stress will increase with this busy environment.

Read the following real world scenario.

You are running a small export company. Today you need to meet your important customer on 10 a.m. you came to office on 9.50 because you met traffic and you need to collect “sample goods information file”. However, it is not on your table.

Your assistant keeps it in another place. Then you spend some time to find it. Due to the situation, you missed the meeting with the customer.

If you have a proper place to keep it, you can collect it very easily without any delays. That is a one situation and there can be more. To reduce such situations we can use 5S.

After applied 5S,

  • Places are clean and clear.
  • People who work in such a place will improve motivation and efficient
  • All of the employees are working according to an order. Therefore, they will improve the discipline without temptation.
  • You can complete large amount of work without stress.
  • Spread the good image of you or your company.
  • You can stop delays in your work.
Before you employ this concept into your home, factory, office……….etc. you can start it with a very small place (may be in your wallet) , here I advice you to apply it into your office table.Now we will look at deeply, each an every step that needs to follow in this concept.

Seiri (Tidiness)

This is the first step of 5S concept. Once you follow this step, you can identify unnecessary and necessary things in particular place.

An example:

Your office table can contain envelops, papers, paper clips, files…etc. You need to spend long time with the table to find something that need to you.Drawers of the table can contain lot of things that you have never used within long period. Those things occupy your valuable space and it is difficult to clean the table.

Follow the below mention steps,

  1. Group all the things on your table and inside the drawers of the table into necessary and unnecessary things.
  2. Divide necessary things to two groups, usually use things and frequently use things.
  3. Unnecessary things can be divide further more,
- Things that can be sell.

- Things that should be destroy.

After grouping things, you can see them like the above diagram. Seri help you to identify
necessary things and unnecessary things. You can sell the unnecessary stuff and make some extra money.

Seiton (Orderliness)

Once you complete the steps of Seri you got the equipments that is essential to your work. In this step, we need to occupy them in a right place with an order and a policy. Every thing must have a unique place or location to store them. Seiton can do it for you. Then it will very easy to find something when you need it.

To organize things we can follow the below mention procedure,
  • Create address or location network.
  • Decide what should be in those locations.
  • Use an identification method to those locations.
  • Paste labels on those locations.
  • Create a method to identify books and files stored in a rack.
You do not need to spend lot of money on this step.

Seiso (Cleanliness)

In the seithon step, we identified storing locations for our things. Before store, those in the new locations we need to clean them. Seiso describe the cleaning process of the things. Unclean things cannot carry into a new place; if you try to carry them, dirt will comes with you.

The meaning of the seiso is clean every thing in everyday.The places where adopt 5S is always clean and clear. The secret is Seiso.

In 5S cleaning process also have a policy.

  1. How to choose cleaning equipments?

- Floor type (Tile, Carpeted and Cement)

- Environment of the place (private, public)

- Budget

- Operational cost.

2. How the particular cleaning equipment operate?


-Other factors (cleaning powders, liquids)

3. How the equipments clean after cleaning process?

-Clean up with water, soap or others.

-Special procedures

4. How to store the cleaning equipments?

-Store place

5. How to increase the life span of the equipments?

If you can design a good policy of cleaning,

  • You can enjoy with cleaning process,
  • Reduce unnecessary cost of cleaning,
  • you can experience effective daily cleaning process.

Seiketsu (Standardization)

If you follow the above three steps your office table become a productive, clean & clear place. Seiketsu means continuous following of Seiri, Seiton, Seiso.

With this step, you can design and follow your own standards of following 5S.

Shitsuke (Discipline)

Shitsuke describes everyone in the place must follow 5S and its principles.

Train discipline to everyone,

  • Give an education about the 5S,
  • Advise them, how they can work in this place.
  • Use point system to know about, “are we follow it?”
  • In the first few days, follow “Seiso” daily until it become a habit.
  • Identify unsuccessful situations once a week and try to apply new solutions to them.

If you can start it with your office table successfully and if you can spread it to your home & office, then 5S will help you to become a wealthy person.