Why 5S does not produce the desired results

Over the past 20 years I have visited numerous manufacturing plants in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Spain, and China to assess performance and workplace organization issues. I had the opportunity to take a close look at his trades and see both the upside and the downside of those trades.

While each plant had its own strengths and weaknesses, one fact was clear: many of the plants had undertaken some form of workplace organization, some had implemented 5S. Neither was getting the results they wanted from undertaking the effort. Some only practiced it when Senior Management was scheduled to visit, others only made half-hearted attempts to implement 5S, and few had a serious and lasting follow-up.

In effect, they were just going through the motions, like writing it into their mission statements, management loudly proclaiming its virtues but taking little interest in the mechanics of the day-to-day, claiming to have created a visual workspace when in fact everything else was. What they did was little. rather than creating signals. The clutter and unnecessary items were still apparent for the most part and the employee had little apparent understanding of the need to keep it clear of unnecessary items.

The fact is that we know what to do. 5S is a lean manufacturing approach to manufacturing based on the Toyota Production System. The job of management in lean manufacturing is to identify and eliminate all forms of waste, including:

• Overproduction: production above customer requirements
• Inventory: keep or buy excess materials
• Transport – unnecessary handling
• Standby: time delays or idle time
• Movement – actions of people that do not add value
• Overprocessing: unnecessary processing steps
• Fixed – Scrap production or parts requiring rework
• Do not use human resources – do not implement the ideas/suggestions of employees.
• There are many impediments to the implementation of lean manufacturing and especially to the proper use of 5S principles and practices:
• Incorrect measures of plant performance
• Wrong focus: too much focus on results, not enough on improving processes
• Lack of confidence in the worker’s abilities to recognize and solve problems;
• Unwillingness to invest time and resources in the correct implementation of 5S
• Failing to recognize your survival obligation to all stakeholders and that change is survival key.

Incorrect measures of plant performance

Performance is affected by many factors, especially when the focus is on the short term. Most of these factors are beyond the immediate control of management. Cash flow (the life blood of any business) is affected by interest rates and can have a dramatic impact on your plant’s profitability. Government policies and overregulation affect earnings in many ways. Also, sales volumes or product prices affect a plant’s level of profit. When these factors have a positive impact on profit, the operation is considered successful and rewarded handsomely even if management practices are ineffective and wasteful. When they have a negative impact on profits, even the best managers are often seen as abysmal failures and are removed from their position.

Worst of all, earnings measures are easily manipulated by “cooking the books.” In most of the facilities I visited, it was very common and obvious that management was manipulating inventory levels in one way or another. A plant manager told me that while he wanted to reduce inventories, to keep his efficiency rates high, he had to overproduce during downtime. This led to higher inventory levels which, if brought down to the right levels, would have a negative impact on their measure of profitability. Too great a focus on Profitability as a performance measure usually results in short-term thinking. What incentive is there for a company that is driven by profitability measures to invest in a 5S project that could have higher costs in the short run and has the potential for significant savings in the long run?

wrong approach

People tend to do what they are rewarded for. If your focus is on equipment utilization rather than customer demand, your equipment will run at full capacity, despite actual demand. The result is overproduction, which is the basis for virtually all manufacturing waste. Focusing on responsibility for machine utilization has the undesirable effect of increasing waste.

To effectively and continuously improve performance and eliminate waste, all processes must be analyzed, understood and then controlled. Measuring the effectiveness of the process will shift the focus towards long-term improvements like 5S and allow companies to reward managers for real performance. Measuring results, on the other hand, only promotes manipulation and short-term thinking.

Lack of confidence in the abilities of workers.

When management is unwilling to develop their employees and allow them the freedom to manage their own processes, they will miss out on capturing the full potential of the organization. I am a firm believer that the solution to every problem facing a business or plant currently lies within the four walls of that facility.

Unwillingness to invest time and resources in the correct implementation of 5S

Management is driven by two things:

• Budget
• Schedule

Anything that interferes with either is seen as an enemy of management, as a result many managers only give half-hearted support to new ideas and projects with which they are unfamiliar. This is compounded by the fact that most people proposing a lean initiative like 5S don’t take the time to codify it in business language. They talk about generalities and the successes of other organizations. They fail to make a legitimate business case for the change. Managers have legitimate questions like:

• How will this affect the budget? Is it a legitimate investment opportunity or just another flavor of the month?
• How can we minimize the impact on the schedule and still provide people to plan and implement 5S? Where do the extra people come from? Etc.

Many managers simply don’t believe in the effectiveness of lean manufacturing and 5S in particular. Many of the managers I spoke to defended the poor manufacturing practices they routinely employed to keep their productivity numbers up and their bonuses on track.

Lack of recognition of your obligation to survive to all stakeholders

Many managers feel that change is unnecessary. The company made money before the recession and the good times will return when it is over. The focus is often on job security rather than job security, the problem is that a sea change is taking place in the global economy and businesses are facing global competition like never before. Many managers do not see the change that has occurred and the threat it poses to their very survival. They would rather bury their heads in the sand than address the need for their own survival; after all, the government will bail them out! The fact is that jobs (including those of managers) are changing and managers are better off shifting their focus to securing their employment and letting the job change as needed.

One of the key elements of the manager’s job was control, which has been modified to include empowerment. To survive and stay employed, managers must relinquish some control to employees, allowing them more control over their work area and workflow. 5S is a prime example of how to effectively empower employees while maintaining the necessary control over budget and schedule.

Produce the desired results

If the plant is operating effectively (and you have properly linked the operating measure to financial goals), then profitability will follow. The key for 5S to produce the desired results is to link it to the goals and strategic objects of the company. The main objective of most companies is to make money by producing a product or service that meets the needs of their customers. This fact is often lost in management’s vision statements and high purpose statements. The vision should be what your business is going to do to meet that goal of making money. The mission statement is how you will accomplish it. Typical purpose statements uttered by various levels of management that do not reflect the vision and mission statement simply confuse and divert the attention of the people who have to carry out the mission. The solution to this problem is the use of strategic thinking to define the needs of the business according to the vision and mission set forth.

The next element to ensure success is to refocus the workforce on a new set of measures and processes that focus on increasing throughput, decreasing inventory, and reducing operating costs. This means completely abandoning many of the traditional measures such as efficiency and looking more for effectiveness. This will require analyzing your processes for the value they add to your products or services. In the short term, this can lead to increased downtime. Smart managers will take advantage of this downtime to develop better uses of this nonproductive time, such as training, full productive maintenance, team building, and continuous improvement activities. Proper training and management will allow workers to spend their downtime improving the processes they work on, as well as their workplace. By eliminating useless, non-value-added activities such as overproduction and empowering and training your workforce, your business can improve its competitiveness and ensure its survival.

Your employees and support staff will need all the lean manufacturing tools and techniques and 5S practices to sustain, self-audit, and continually improve the workplace and their jobs. They will need a well thought out and planned program that has the support of management at all levels. Keep in mind that the most frequently missing element is management commitment. If you invest everyone’s time and commitment into 5S, and some people fail to maintain the standard, the program will collapse. Management must support the program with enforceable policies and procedures.

Regular monitoring is also required to ensure processes are working as intended or are modified in a controlled manner when necessary. Management must not only commit resources, they must commit their time to get involved. They must lead from the front and have high visibility in the workplace.