Simply Sustaining 5S

Many people find the first three stages of 5S fairly easy to do, but Sustaining 5S activities can be a real challenge. So here’s a simple approach you might find helpful:

Working with the people in each area, decide on a small number of things you really want to be better organised (the “vital few”).

Describe in simple words what good looks like. If you possibly can, phrase this as a simple “Yes / No” question, where “Yes” represents the desired outcome. Examples might be “All tools back in the correct places on the shadow board at the end of the shift?”, “All gangways clear of any obstruction?”, “Floor clear of any packaging materials?”.

Create a simple checklist for each area, listing these questions.

At agreed times (hourly, at end of shift, daily, weekly, etc). check the work area against the items on the checklist, giving each a “Yes” or “No” answer.

Record how many items have been checked, and how many of these reached the standard (a “Yes” answer). Calculate your score as the number of “hits” (items that were a “Yes”), divided by the number of checks carried out, then mutiply this by 100 to create a percentage score.

Set a target / desired level for the next period of time (eg “95% by March 2020”), and compare this with your current score.

Make the scores visible, tackle the reasons for any “No” results, recognise the team’s efforts and watch your 5S performance improve.

Periodically raise the standard – add new items to the list, make the standard more demanding, challenge the team to do better.

As always, please let us have your own thoughts, experiences and examples. And if you’d like some help in developing a sustainable approach to 5S, simply contact andrew.nicholson@improvemyfactory.com

Sustaining 5S - tackling S4 and S5

Waste-Added Tax (WAT) – how much are you paying?

Waste-Added Tax

Waste-Added Tax

Every activity that doesn’t add Value for the Customer costs you money. Money that increases cost, reduces margin and makes you vulnerable to leaner competitors.

It’s the tax that you pay for inertia and inefficiency. And it’s the tax that keeps on taking. Every day that you aren’t implementing Lean. Every day that you lose focus on improvement. Every day that you keep on doing what you’ve always done.

With labour and materials costs continuing to rise, and customers wanting price reductions, it’s the tax that you must avoid. In fact, reducing Waste-Added Tax should be part of everyone’s daily activities.

Here’s a suggestion: show WAT as a line in your Management Accounts. Measure it, publish it, hold people accountable, set targets and apply your problem-solving process to reducing it.

 

Better, Cheaper, Faster – myth or fact?

I regularly meet people in manufacturing who still see life as full of trade-offs and compromises. “There’s no such thing as perfect”. “If it goes any faster, it’ll break down”. “We can get better material but they won’t pay for it!”. “if we turn up the speed, we’ll get more rejects”.  “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”. “We make the best, so we have to charge top dollar for it”. “We might be able to do it faster, but it’ll cost you!”.

Any of these phrases sound familiar? I’ve spent my whole working life listening to them. And I don’t believe any of them. Let me tell you why…

From the day we’re born, our reptile brains are hard-wired to learn about cause and effect. “Cry – get fed”. “Touch the stove – get burned”. As human beings, we’re very good at seeing these links. So good in fact that we can see links that don’t exist! And soon, many of these false links come to be accepted as true.

“You only use 10% of your brain”, “Alcohol helps you sleep” “Humans lose most of their body heat throgh their heads”. Common knowledge? Common myths, in fact.

And the moral of the story? If you’re serious about making step changes in your manufacturing performance, start with your own myth-busting. Challenge preconceptions, focus on the facts and run some experiments. Change the dialogue – “Where’s the data?”, “What’s the evidence?”, “Show me the facts”, “Humour me – let’s try it.” Many’s the time I’ve seen a machine run faster with absolutely no decrease in quality at all.

So what’s your own experience – and which myths have you helped to bust?

QCD - Quality, Cost and Delivery

QCD