5S Techniques

There are so many Tools and techniques available for Production Management and Maintainance. Out of which the easiest to Adopt is 5S Techniques. This 5S comes from the ancient but efficient techniques of Lean Management. 5S techniques aims at removing the Mudas(Non Value Adding Activities) from our day to day schedule. It is well known that Organizations are paid for only those Activities which Adds Value to the product. It can be shown that Not More than 10% activities are Value Adding in any production chain. I mention again, Value Adding Activities are those for which Customers pay. Take for Example, Ready-made Garment Production firm. Raw Material is ordered and received(Its a NVA) at a cost paid by Mfgr. The Inventory (NVA) is developed by a group of people who are paid by Mfgr. The Tools are hired or bought(NVA)to facilitate production. The Skilled professionals are hired to operate those tools(NVA). The Electric Power being consumed is again NVA. Yarn is converted into plain White fabric(NVA). The white Fabric is then sent for Dying(value Adding).It is then tailored to pants and shirts(VA). See that only 2 out of many activities are Value Adding. The Lean Management concept aims at the removal of these NVAs. The history of Lean goes back to the times of Sir Sakichi Toyoda(Yes.... the Father of Lean), who invented the techniques to remove NVAs in his Automobile company which is now famous as Toyota Motors. There are many techniques which forms the basis of lean.We shall start of today with 5S techniques.      

5S AS A CIRCULAR FLOW 

5S Technique is briefly described as per above flow circular activities. Look that Maintainability is the most important aspect of the 5S. When we talk about Sort, We mean to sort not only Important but also The things which are not Important. The Straightening refers to keeping all the things at right place, so that these are easily accessible at any time. Tagging the items can be a good idea to add value to this step. Once everything is at its place its time to refine the surroundings. Which is referred to as SHINING. Once all these steps are implemented these should become a habit and should be STANDARDIZED. Standardization will bring perfection in the 5S. Of coarse Maintainance is quite logical and is to be done as a regular practice. Next We Will have a look at some more similar practices which shall cover PDCA process and some aspects of Six Sigma.