The 5S Archives | Page 3 of 3

What’s the ROI of a 5S Program?

By Jon Miller - January 11th, 2010

A reader asked, “What’s the ROI of a 5S program?” She explained that she had read on another blog that it was impossible to calculate an ROI for a 5S program and that this was troubling for her. She has been leading 5

Declutter with 5S in 20 Minutes Per Day?

By Jon Miller - December 23rd, 2009

In modern society there are many promises of something in “only 20 minutes per day” whether it is flat abdominals, riches or perfect happiness. In fact what many people miss is that it is “20 minutes per day FOREVER&#

Why Should I Mark My Cupboards!?

By Jon Miller - August 17th, 2009

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: “Only problem is in personalized cabins, where there are lots of

5S Red Tag Event for this Website

By Jon Miller - May 17th, 2009

Thanks to a reader’s timely comment, I am happy to share with you some news about some accelerated change to our blog. “The site looks like it needs a red tag event!” said Shaun. Right you are! What surprised me was t

Ask Gemba: Do We Need the 4th and 5th S?

By Jon Miller - March 20th, 2009

Personally I don’t care a great deal for the 4th and 5th S. The team activity of throwing things out, rearranging and cleaning things up can be a blast. Once that’s done and the excitement wears off, the daily maintenance a

5S Overview Video

By Jon Miller - March 11th, 2009

The launch of our online training service Gemba Academy is just days away. We have been busy at work readying online training courses for lean manufacturing, six sigma, project management and more. We will offer six month subscriptions

The Correct Sequence for Doing 5S?

By Jon Miller - January 29th, 2009

Harish was reading the archives and asked a question: Traditionally (Hirano or Ohno’s Work Place Management) 5S is in a specific order – Sort, Set (Straighten), Shine (Spic & Span), Standardize and Sustain (if needed).

101 Kaizen Templates: Motion Economy Chart

By Jon Miller - February 16th, 2008

One of the toughest things that a kaizen consultant has to do is to tear down the results of past kaizens. This is hard because people develop a sense of ownership of the status quo they helped to build. Even if the status is not good,

Top 10 Success Factors for 5S

By Jon Miller - September 27th, 2007

Are you struggling with sustaining your 5S efforts as part of a Lean implementation? You’re not alone. We conducted a poll during a Lean facilitator training class and found that many experience common barriers and struggles in m

5S Know How from the Last Century

By Jon Miller - August 13th, 2007

We are going through a fairly thorough 5S exercise of our server. Just over 22GB of files were red tagged last week. Of the few items that were salvaged from the red tag folder was a series of notes by Brad Schmidt, President of Gemba

Announcing the 5S Challenge Winners!

By Jon Miller - May 18th, 2007

Thank you Konrad, Ron, Robert, Nancy, Chris, Eric, Jason, Rajdeep and Dee for your thoughtful answers to the question “which of the 5S is hardest and why?” There was a lot of emphasis in on keeping it going, the 5th S known

5S Challenge: Which S Is Most Difficult and Why?

By Jon Miller - May 12th, 2007

“Which of the 5S is most difficult?” I received this question during a class I was teaching recently. I’ve never been asked this before. People often say “self-discipline is the most difficult” or “s

Hoshin is 5S for Your Head

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2006

Busy, busy days. It’s days like these that it becomes more important to avoid working harder, longer and instead take a precious moment out of your day to examine whether what you are doing is really adding value towards the ulti

E-mail 5S

By Jon Miller - August 23rd, 2006

A Wall Street Journal article today says How You Handle Your E-mail Inbox Says A Lot About You. The article identifies that e-mail is overwhelming people. There is an example of one person who was stressed out by 500 e-mails in their i

5S Your Desk: And Other Tips for Office Productivity

By Jon Miller - March 21st, 2006

“I know where everything is.” How many times have you heard (or given) this rejoinder to “please 5S your desk“? It’s hard to argue the logic of “cluttered desk, cluttered mind” when a desk is a

Kaizen in the Naval Air Command

By Jon Miller - July 23rd, 2005

The U.S. Armed Forces have been using a combination of quality improvement tools and methods for many years. Recently many bases, depots and command centers have been using Lean manufacturing and six sigma tools and principles very eff

Three Keys to Sustaining 5S

By Jon Miller - February 8th, 2005

Visiting a plant tour at a Midwestern cold rolled steel mill today, I had the chance to reflect on what makes a 5S effort sustained and successful. The owner took me through the mill and showed me a line at the start of the tour that w

Focus on Flow Streamlines 5S

By Jon Miller - December 26th, 2003

At the core of Lean Enterprise Transformation are the fundamental principles of customer focus, getting rid of the 7 wastes and creating flow. What follows is the alphabet soup of Lean tools in order to achieve this, including but not

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