5S for Project Delivery and Baseball
June 8th, 2003 by Hal
I've been meaning to write about 5S for projects for quite awhile. Joe Ely's posting Sammy, Why'd you do it? and my comment I'm not worried for Sammy last week in Learning About Lean was enough to get me writing. I'll keep today's posting to a minimum to just introduce the topic. I'll write again tomorrow on more of the application of 5S.
Many people understand 5S as a factory floor approach for getting the "house in order". In my experience, it is also the place to start any lean initiative. 5S stands for five Japanese words that collectively represent an approach known as the visual workplace. The Japanese words (loosely) translate as:
- seiri (sort) - organization
- seiton (set in order)- orderliness
- seiso (shine)- cleanliness
- seiketsu (standardize) - standardized clean-up
- shitsuke (sustain) - discipline
So what does this have to do with projects and baseball? For those projects that take place in a physical setting (construction) the visual workplace approach absolutely applies. Tools ready for use, workspaces in good order, and the organization of just the right material can significantly improve the flow of work on a project. Better flow = less waste. And for baseball? Sammy Sosa swung and broke a bat that was only intended for practice and not allowed in the game. The bat could have been marked in such a way and kept in such a place that it would be very unlikely that it would ever have been used in a game. Poor Sammy is looking at an 8 game suspension for his mistake.
Not all projects occur in a single physical setting. Many projects are virtual. There is no physical place where the project is performed. Even construction projects in the early phases are virtual. The idea of a visual workplace is to have the setting, the material, the tools, and the work in a condition for performance. That principle (or policy) applies in the distributed virtual condition equally as well. It just relies on team members individually acting in accordance with the principle.
Read more about the Principles of 5S.
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