5S Your Office Processes (Chapter 1 in the Series)

 “Groundhog’s Day” in the Office

So, it’s another day in the office and there you are performing your typical duties. You think you are efficient at what you do each day although you must admit you find yourself behind more often than ahead. You notice your department associates are no better off than you. Their daily duties contain the same obstacles and processing issues you deal with each day. That’s just life. Every place is the same. Everyone has their hand on the grinding wheel so just go along with the way things are and accept it. Why complain because no one will listen anyway. Does this describe your day?  Someone mentions, “We should 5S this place.” Using terminology from lean manufacturing, 5S refers to organizing the workplace. Your present chaotic office environment equals your current state. Does it seem hopeless with no thought to escape from “Groundhog’s Day”, the current state?

I believe it does. It also describes and defines the opportunity for improvement. Just like the movie, “Groundhog’s Day,” Phil Connors is trying to change things for the better the next time the alarm goes off. Now today the boss thinks it’s time to conduct 5S in the office setting because that will help your work load and departmental process efficiency. So, I’m thinking how is outlining where my stapler goes on my desk going to help me become more efficient?  5S is okay for the shop floor but not for our office because what we do is different. 5S is not the solution.

Introducing 5S to the Office

Truth resides in both positions. Yes, it’s the time for 5S-ing the office setting. Yes, 5S is not the total solution. Masaaki Imai, the author of the book Kaizen, The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success states, “The starting point for improvement is to recognize the need. This comes from recognition of a problem.” Before you improve, you must know a problem exists. What defines the need for 5S in the office? Let’s place a pin in this question for the moment.

5S is a process, a lean manufacturing method, that commonly finds its usefulness just about anywhere, where workplace organization is desired, not just the factory floor. So, should lean manufacturing principles be applied to the office or the administrative side of the business? A hospital? McDonald’s? A golf course? A 10 Minute Oil Change shop? Hopefully you will be able to answer this question as you continue the read about implementing lean in this article.

Why 5S Does Not Fit the Office Setting

Let’s make a comparison about why 5S is easily applied to factory floor as opposed to an office setting. Lean manufacturing principles on the shop floor address the following:

• Factory floors need high standards to make sure customer deliveries are timely and product quality is superior.
• The Office, however, is not as structured in their operations.
• 5S is the method that organizes the work place environment to meet on time delivery of parts, tooling, and indirect materials, so everything needed to do the work is exactly placed for the operator. A designed place for everything to go.
• In the office, “In-box” controls, “Out-box” controls, filing, process times, and deadlines are loosely monitored. “Just place it on my desk and I’ll get around to it.” In other words, customer demands are not that pressing, where factory floor delays immediately impact the production process.
• 5S assists in delivering customer satisfaction in the form of QCD (Quality, Cost, Delivery).
• In the office, customer satisfaction metrics are not solidly defined. (Things are re-done, re-handled, re-processed as normal business. The Cost of the rework is not evaluated as a business waste. The Delivery of the process to the next process is just what it is with deadlines rarely identified.) No one is keeping track of how your administrative errors impact the customer.
• On the factory floor, often items such as radios, beverages, food, newspapers, iPods, and even personal items, are not permissible after conducting 5S activities. In other words, once eliminated these things increase operator focus on quality and operator safety.
• The cubical office space, placement of the computer and associated office tools belonged to the employee.On the factory floor, operator work space is used by the employee but owned by management.
• The worker in the factory floor is to be focused on production, so if the “other things” exist within their gemba (their work environment) which create distraction or disruption, eliminate them.
• Everyone, from the CEO to the receptionist, create their own personalized office environment to conduct their work. The office cube is an extention of personal life. Therefore, deploying the principles of 5S in the Office tend to infringe more upon the Office workers’ rights. You probably didn’t catch that because the music in your ear buds is too loud.
• Business always measures itself upon the value add of the operations, of which the highest percentage is always on the factory floor. The factory floor makes money.
• Office processes are not perceived as “value add” to the operations because these processes only indirectly impact the making and delivery of the product or service to the buying customer. Office functions do not make money.

How Lean Practices Differ

I just poured fuel on the fire that supports the premise that lean practices and 5S are not effective in an office setting. If you think that, you are not recognizing that office practices and rules are no different when evaluating business efficiency and success.

Stay tuned for the next step…but in the meantime, don’t just sit there, do something about it. Improve something.

Direct your inquiries, comments, and discussion to: pverschaeve@surefoundationsllc.com