I Love 5S

It was a monstrous metal contraption. We had no idea what it was. The thick layer of dust indicated it had been sitting on the warehouse shelf for some time. It was heavy…it took three of us to finagle it off the shelf. There were some numbers on it, but no type of descriptive name.

We asked the warehouse manager what it was. He told us he didn’t know. So we took out our phones.

About 15 minutes of Googling and we had our answer. It was an air conditioning compressor from 1948. None of us realized they even had AC back then.

Again, we turned to the manager, asking him why it was sitting in the warehouse.

“We might need it,” Was his reply.

After a collective sigh, we began to realize that we were in for a long event.

We were a team of Green Belt trainees that had been asked to do a 5S of a warehouse. As a whole we were excited. None of us had really done a full on 5S event, and it was clear this place could use it.

The warehouse looked like the one at the end of The Raiders of the Lost Ark; cavernous, dimly lit, and almost every shelf filled. But we put our faith in the 5S process.

Many readers of this newsletter will recognize the five “S” methodology; five steps, that all start with the letter “S”

Sort: Separate needed items from unneeded materials. Eliminate unwanted items.

Straighten: Neatly arrange and identify parts and tools for ease of use.

Shine: Conduct a cleanup campaign.

Standardize: Conduct Sort, Straighten, and Shine daily to maintain the workplace.

Sustain: Consistently apply the first four S’s.

We were staring with Sort …and after the compressor incident, we readjusted our schedule. We’d set aside a week to get through the first three steps. But it was clear we were going to use a full week to get through Sort.

Every crate, box, bin, and stand alone item on the shelves was sorted; tossing what was no longer needed or serviceable. Within days we filled two large dumpsters with metal items that we were able to sell as scrap for over $10,000. We filled another dumpster with garbage and broken items that could not recycled. By the end of the week, we’d pretty much did a first pass of the Sort step.

There were quite a few items nobody was quite sure about: if they were really needed or not. So we put Red Tags on them. We let all building managers and supply folks throughout the campus know there were Red Tagged items at the warehouse. If it was something they needed to stay in stock, to stop by warehouse and fill in the tag. Otherwise, it would get tossed. Deadline was set for one month.

The team re-assembled after a month. Only a few Red Tagged items were claimed. We finished up our Sort process by tossing the unclaimed items; getting about $300 more in scrap sales.

We moved onto the Straighten step. It was relatively easy with so much junk gone. About a third of the shelf space was now cleared. The supply team had run reports on items pulled from the warehouse; and we re-arranged the stock accordingly. More popular items were grouped together and moved towards the front of the warehouse to make them easier to get to.

It was the Shine phase that really made folks take notice. We cleaned the shelves (it was really amazing how much dust collects in a warehouse!). And took care of those annoying little things like repairing the holes near the eaves of the roof where pigeons would enter the warehouse. But it was the painting and labelling that caught people’s attention.

There was some leftover paint we used to supplement the new supplies we’d bought.?We painted shelves, poles, doorways, even floors. We created a stencil and painted colored arrows that provided pathways for workers to follow. We redid ?the missing and faded restricted and danger boundaries. People could once again see red and yellow/black lines and be aware of danger.

Labels on the shelves had been a mish mash of tapes with magic maker scribbles. We replaced them with plastic holders and clear computer printed labels, complete with scannable barcodes.

It took over two weeks of part time work to do the Shine, but in the end, it was a like walking into a new building. Folks coming over for supplied did a double take and some thought they were in the wrong building.

A guy from maintenance stopped us one day. He’d seen the transformation in the warehouse and wanted to talk. They were finishing up a new aircraft hanger, and he wanted to pick our brains on how it should be set up and organized. So a meeting was set up with the maintenance leadership team.

We gave them crash course in 5S and Lean. We toured the new facility with them and were able to make some recommendations. Mainly around Straighten and Standardize: how to mark things and some visual management boards…kind of a combination of Lean and 5S inputs. But we did have one big impact...the assignment of workspaces.

Next to the open bay where the plane would be, the Life Support department claimed a workspace. This was the team that did oxygen masks, life preservers, parachutes, etc. Down a hallway, away from the aircraft, was to the metal shop. It had a garage door that opened to the back end of the hanger for deliveries. But if they were to move any sheet metal to the airplane during repairs, they would have to take down the hallway, with it’s twists and turns. Or take it outside, around the hanger, and then to the plane (not ideal during Wisconsin Winters).

Our team asked why the two shops couldn’t switch? Some light bulbs went off and the maintenance folks realized what an advantage that would be. After confirming the space requirements would work, the shops switched spaces.

With our little side project done, we went back to finish up the warehouse. We standardized things and set up guides, training, and recurring reviews to make sure something wasn’t left on the shelves for 50 some years.

I haven’t seen too many really good comprehensive 5S events, and so it was really satisfying to be part of this one.

How about you? Have you been part of a giant 5S? If so, it would be great to hear about it in the comments.