Why Should I Mark My Cupboards!?

Ronak has been successful with 5S in the factory but is facing challenges with 5S in the office. He said in a follow-up to the post on 5S guidelines for the office:

Personal goods in non-personal cabinets

If cabinet contents are truly “personal” items like lunch boxes or family photos, then the first ‘S’ in 5S (Sort) should manage these. Anything remaining after sorting should be properly placed and labeled, preventing clutter accumulation. This way, any disorder becomes immediately noticeable, avoiding the need to constantly back to sort.

When Not to Mark: Balancing Cabinet Privacy and Accessibility

If the cabinet contained top secret information it may be a good idea not to detail its contents. If it was agreed that the cabinet is essentially a personal locker, then just mark it as such but don’t detail the contents. If it’s never important for anyone else to be able to find anything inside of those personal cabinets, then they probably don’t need to mark those cabinets.

If that were indeed the case, it begs the question as to why solely the manager in the office made use of the information or materials stored in the cabinet. It is reasonable to assume that the information pertains to the company and plays a role in an internal customer-supplier dynamic. Following this line of reasoning, it becomes necessary for the contents to be easily visible, as there may be instances when someone else requires access to the information in the manager’s absence or during other circumstances where the manager is unable to assist.

What’s the Point of Marking? Exploring Alternatives in Kaizen

Just because the 5S manual recommends labeling and provides guidance on how to do so, we shouldn’t automatically adopt this practice. Every action we take in line with kaizen should be sensible and pragmatic. Labeling is indeed a method of identification, but it also plays a significant role in defining what something is not. It aids in visual management, like when we designate a spot for “books”, which allows us to quickly spot any non-book items as abnormalities in that specific location. However, labeling may not always be the most efficient, effective, or aesthetically pleasing method. We could consider alternatives like installing transparent plastic doors and walls, eliminating the need for labels. Another option could be photographing the contents and displaying these photos on the exterior of the cabinets.

Elevate the Discussion: Visualization in Lean Workspaces

Though I’ve never encountered a cabinet I didn’t feel the urge to label, if not labeling them doesn’t spawn any problems, then it’s alright to keep them unlabeled. Nonetheless, in a lean workspace, not being able to visualize something is a problem in itself, since visualization stands as a golden rule. The only way to solve problems is by making them visible. If the management can’t agree with this principle, they’re in no way ready for 5S or any facet of lean.

Daniel Markovitz
August 17, 2009 - 4:45 am
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Jon,
I think the discipline of 5S helps focus the mind on what’s important in one’s job, and what is merely waste. Given the volume of information that office workers manage, there’s a huge amount of stuff — emails, files, reports, magazines, websites, etc. — that they’ve collected as part of their work. Some if it is useful for getting the job done. Some of it is useful. . . but realistically, they’re not actually going to use it, because they’re just too busy, or their job has changed. And some of it was useful at one point, but now it’s obsolete garbage.
Applying 5S to this collection of stuff means making decisions about all that information and figuring out what to do with it. Whether they choose to actually use it for something, archive it for the future, or toss it, they’re finally assessing their work and analyzing their needs. And this analysis gives greater clarity about what’s needed on a daily basis to create customer value.
Isaac D. Curtis
August 18, 2009 - 4:16 am
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Ronak,
Everyone is a teacher. Sometimes the teacher needs to call in a substitute teacher. The substitute teacher needs to know where the teacher’s materials are so the class can be taught 🙂
John Santomer
August 19, 2009 - 12:29 am
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Dear Jon,
Now I understand why the Westerners were fascinated by the Japanese simplistic,clean and organized approach at their work place to an extent that personal items such as family photos and office display materials were very minimal. It is simply that the Japanese recognized the importance of having an uncluttered work area as professed by the rules of 5S. For the Japanese, an item to be placed in their work area need to have more than just the purpose of being a display item. Perhaps they have already grasped the idea that if an item is in the corporate workplace then it is no longer essentially a personal belonging and has become a corporate property occupying corporate space.
And as you’ve stated if the presence of the item is work related-then it should be marked (unless the materials contain corporate confidential or top secret info by nature). The presence of corporate work related materials in the office means that all who are authorized to have access should be able to find the item easily even if they come to the area for the first time. This way labels readily reduce the search time for an item. Which goes double for electronic files kept in a huge files repository.
sharma
August 19, 2009 - 1:35 am
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Dear Jon,
I think the answer lies in your excellent article “the power of you” :
where you have stated the four stages in personal change curve :
denial-resistance-exploration-commitment and the four stages of competence
1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence
3. Conscious competence
4. Unconscious competence.
That’s why kaizen takes time to sink in an organization.
Secondly, (without any prejudice) I am developing a feeling that just like the MBAs are always joked about by the real Entreprenuers, the same will be true for the “well educated black belt holders of six sigma” who want to achieve everything in a short span of time.
I think that Ronak should also reflect on the human aspect of implementing TPS.
Ronak
September 23, 2009 - 8:38 pm
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Thank to all for the input. This will definately help me in implementing 5S in personal cabinets.
Steve
July 20, 2010 - 7:30 am
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Long before I read the first thing about 5S, I was teaching my children, specifically my oldest, that everything within the home needed a place and either a purpose or sentimental connection. (I know a sentimental connection can be connected to purpose but for argument sake, purpose here is the item is used like a coffee pot, pictures that are hung on the wall, etc.; where as, sentimental is grandmother’s purse that is never used.) As long as an item has a place and one of the others, then it can be kept; everything else should find a new home. I think this can be taken to an extreme at the work place though. When you start nixing personal affects like pictures, coffee cups, etc. you are not gaining anything in the form of efficiency, you actually lose it because people are thinking about how rigid the company has become. Pictures and personal affects have a place that is out of the way to allow efficiency in work and still allow employees to personalize their space.
Another way it can be taken to extreme and interfere with efficiency is by the following example, I’m right handed, so I have a pen carousel holder on the right hand side of my computer (looking at the screen), so I can reach with my right hand, grab a writing utensil and begin righting with my right hand. This wouldn’t be the same for a left handed person who would probably be more efficient with the pen holder on the left side (looking at the screen). The point is, 5S is a useful tool for organizing, straightening and cleaning an area to make it more efficient, but taken to the extreme of removing person photos on a wall that would otherwise be blank doesn’t improve efficiency. The same can be said about a small personal space to put lunch sacks, purses, etc.