Before and After Comparisons

Look at these two pictures. Do you notice anything different?

The picture on the left was taken "Before" implementing any changes. The picture on the right was taken "After" the shop was re-organized. Can you see the difference now?

The "Before" picture has the distinct appearance of chaos, where the "After" picture looks much more organized. Before the changes the employees at this company would build their products where ever there was an available space on the shop floor. They would move their equipment, parts and tool boxes into a clear area, then start working. This whole process took a considerable amount of time out of the work day before they could actually start doing what they were employed to do.

So, what was the final result of this workplace organization process? Well after completion of a 5S training session it took a small team just 5 hours to organize the workplace and create 2 dedicated cells which resulted in a 90% increase in productivity. It may be hard to believe, but it's true and very typical of the results obtained during any Lean Manufacturing implementation.

You can usually gauge a company's attitude towards quality by simply taking a 10 minutes tour of their facility. A quick visual assessment will give a clear indication of their level of commitment to 5S and Workplace Organization.

30 Second Challenge

To prove this point I will ask all my clients to take part in what I call "The 30 second challenge." Here are the simple steps:

1. Get a stop watch, pen and paper.

2. Go to your workplace and stand ready to start doing your job.

3. Start the watch and go get the first item you need?

4. Write the time down for the first item.

5. Now try it with the next 2 or 3 items.

Did you find the each item in 30 seconds or less? If you can't find what you need in 30 seconds or less, you're wasting valuable time throughout the day, week, month and year searching for materials, equipment or information. Think about what it's really costing you to make your products, because while a person is searching for items, they cannot produce anything.

Cost of Searching for Things!

You can calculate the impact of wasted time on your business. If your employees are wasting 30 minutes per day doing other activities (e.g. looking for tools, equipment, information, etc) other than doing their actual job, what is it costing your business?

Average work year has 250 days per year. 30 minutes (or 0.5 hours) per day

250 / 0.5 = 125 hours per year

If an employee is earning $15 per hour, the cost is:

125 hours x $15 = $1875 per employee per year.

You can do the calculation for the total number of employees in your organization:

10 employees = $18,750 per year

50 employees = $93,750 per year

100 employees = $187,500 per year

As you can see from this simple example, its really important to know how much of the workday is used for doing non-value added activities. If you don't know how much time is lost, its adding cost to the product and guess who pays for it, your customers. Companies will spend thousands of dollars trying to track direct labor costs but still have no idea of how much time is actually wasted throughout the process everyday .

Any company trying to implement Lean Manufacturing will not succeed without creating a clean and orderly workplace. The motto for Workplace Organization is "A place for everything and everything in it's place." If it's not in its proper place, then someone has to take time away from their job to go find it and that's just simply waste.

Workplace Organization

To achieve a better level of Workplace Organization you will use two Lean techniques:

• 5S

• Visual Controls

5S is a series of specific activities required to create a clean and organized work area.

1. Sort - remove unnecessary items.

2. Straighten - create a place for everything.

3. Shine - clean and inspect the workplace.

4. Standardize - define the best practices.

5. Sustain - make 5S a daily habit.

Visual Controls give information or communicate visually :

• Kanban - when, what and where to replenish.

• Picture location - place a picture at a point to identify the part or equipment.

• Location boxes - place a specific item in the specific box.

• Shadow board - put the item back in the place designated for it.

• Color coding - ensures the item is returned to the same color location.

• Load leveling - produce only what is required to meet demand.

The two pictures above show examples of Visual Controls:

1. A shadow board with tools placed in a neat and orderly layout. It ensures correct location and replacement of tools.

2. Painting a location box to clearly define where specific items are to be placed.

Visual Controls create consistency and repeatability, which helps standardize a process. All employees know exactly what goes where and how it can be easily located .