5S for Product Developers?
Things have been quiet on the blog for the last week as I've undertaken a major 5S project in my office. I don't normally recommend 5S and most of the time, it's an exemplar of how not to transfer lean concepts to product development. When I see others' presentations on lean product development, there is one slide that is almost guaranteed to get my dander up: Before-and-after pictures of engineers' desks championing the tool.
In English, 5S most often stands for Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize (sometimes Systematize), Sustain. The 5S entry in Wikipedia spells out 5S in Japanese. In a plant, 5S leads to outlines on the floor for specific equipment, cut-outs in drawers that hold specific tools and labels everywhere. Lean manufacturing gurus consider it to be one of the pillars of lean, and it is often the first thing done in a lean manufacturing transformation.
The biggest misguided abuse of 5S that I've seen are those who have tried to mandate 5S for individual engineers' desks or team workspaces. I can understand using 5S in model shops or prototype labs. There are born-organized engineers who seem to thrive on it. But there are others who will just resent the whole thing. Engineers hate wasted effort, and there is nothing more wasteful than putting everything back at night only to have to pull it all out again in the morning - if there is no discernible impact on anyone else. In fact, in the wrong environment, it can derail an entire lean product development effort by reinforcing the false impression that lean is all about standardization at the expense of innovation.
Some of the most creative, productive engineers have so many spare parts, test equipment, etc. in their cubicles that you wonder how they can get anything done. . .because they need all those things to support the experimentation that leads to such great product designs. After all, aren't we trying to encourage people to get direct, hands-on experience with the problems they're solving? It's hard to do that if the engineers feel like they can't get their hands (or their desks) dirty.
I'm a "get my hands dirty" kind of person myself. So how did I come to accept 5S for my office? My business has grown in the last year, and I've brought on a part-time assistant to help with administrative tasks. I have three products in the pipeline for summer that she will assemble and ship. Suddenly, half of my office is shared space and I have a microfactory.
Intuitive organizing no longer fits. For her productivity and for mine, we need some agreements about how the shared space will be organized. I still have private space that I am free to clutter or unclutter as needed but it's now confined to its own area that she will not disturb. 5S reminds us that organizing is just the beginning - we need to also keep the space clean and periodically reflect on how well it's working - that's the Shine and Sustain parts.
Where are the shared spaces in your organization? How can you empower the people who use them to organize them to maximize productivity for everyone? Where are the private spaces? How can you empower your product developers to organize their private spaces in the best ways that work for them?
In English, 5S most often stands for Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize (sometimes Systematize), Sustain. The 5S entry in Wikipedia spells out 5S in Japanese. In a plant, 5S leads to outlines on the floor for specific equipment, cut-outs in drawers that hold specific tools and labels everywhere. Lean manufacturing gurus consider it to be one of the pillars of lean, and it is often the first thing done in a lean manufacturing transformation.
The biggest misguided abuse of 5S that I've seen are those who have tried to mandate 5S for individual engineers' desks or team workspaces. I can understand using 5S in model shops or prototype labs. There are born-organized engineers who seem to thrive on it. But there are others who will just resent the whole thing. Engineers hate wasted effort, and there is nothing more wasteful than putting everything back at night only to have to pull it all out again in the morning - if there is no discernible impact on anyone else. In fact, in the wrong environment, it can derail an entire lean product development effort by reinforcing the false impression that lean is all about standardization at the expense of innovation.
Some of the most creative, productive engineers have so many spare parts, test equipment, etc. in their cubicles that you wonder how they can get anything done. . .because they need all those things to support the experimentation that leads to such great product designs. After all, aren't we trying to encourage people to get direct, hands-on experience with the problems they're solving? It's hard to do that if the engineers feel like they can't get their hands (or their desks) dirty.
I'm a "get my hands dirty" kind of person myself. So how did I come to accept 5S for my office? My business has grown in the last year, and I've brought on a part-time assistant to help with administrative tasks. I have three products in the pipeline for summer that she will assemble and ship. Suddenly, half of my office is shared space and I have a microfactory.
Intuitive organizing no longer fits. For her productivity and for mine, we need some agreements about how the shared space will be organized. I still have private space that I am free to clutter or unclutter as needed but it's now confined to its own area that she will not disturb. 5S reminds us that organizing is just the beginning - we need to also keep the space clean and periodically reflect on how well it's working - that's the Shine and Sustain parts.
Where are the shared spaces in your organization? How can you empower the people who use them to organize them to maximize productivity for everyone? Where are the private spaces? How can you empower your product developers to organize their private spaces in the best ways that work for them?
Labels: 5S
posted by Katherine Radeka
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7:09 PM
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