What happens after 5S

margadri

margadri

Well-known member
I can see last year interest and response about the lean manufacturing thread.
I can also see how short lived it was.
We have started training a couple of weeks ago and I would like to ask your opinion about "the after" experience.
So far I am not impressed and I can't see anything new bound to happen in our factory, but everybody has to do it and I am curious to see what happens next.
You people have been there and done that.
What am I going to expect in the next future?
I must say I work in prepress and I have nothing to do with management!
Thank you in advance for any insight.
 
Last edited:
Get out... now!

Get out... now!

My worthless opinion is it's a huge waste of time and money. If your company is hurting the last place to put money is in a concept that just flat out annoys every worker because of bad owner/managerial decisions. What a waste of resources. Going through it twice before, both companies eventually went out of business anyway, didn't help moral one bit. Basically do more work with less people. Wow what a genius solution. Ownership is always right even to the bitter end. They never want to listen to anyone but their "key" personal. You know the ones, the same ones that got the company there in the first place. My advice is to immediately start looking for another job because the companies days are over. Your life is going to be hectic at work and the owner's attitude will be even worse now that everybody knows he/she is about to loose the company and they're desperate. Sounds harsh, I know but facts are facts, I wish someone could've proven me wrong.
 
CruzinCooler said:
My worthless opinion is it's a huge waste of time and money. If your company is hurting the last place to put money is in a concept that just flat out annoys every worker because of bad owner/managerial decisions. What a waste of resources. Going through it twice before, both companies eventually went out of business anyway, didn't help moral one bit. Basically do more work with less people. Wow what a genius solution. Ownership is always right even to the bitter end. They never want to listen to anyone but their "key" personal. You know the ones, the same ones that got the company there in the first place. My advice is to immediately start looking for another job because the companies days are over. Your life is going to be hectic at work and the owner's attitude will be even worse now that everybody knows he/she is about to loose the company and they're desperate. Sounds harsh, I know but facts are facts, I wish someone could've proven me wrong.
Click to expand...

The company I am working for is very healthy. Great turn around and no problems in sight (that I can see so far).
I don't know what made them make this decision.
I would like to believe is because they really want to improve.
BTW I am always looking for another job as long as it is far from Printing and Prepress.
I had enough of all this a long time ago!!!!
 
We started the 5s and switched to 6s recently. Great progam. When we walk customers through the building, they are amazed at how clean the place is.
 
Kramer68 said:
We started the 5s and switched to 6s recently. Great program. When we walk customers through the building, they are amazed at how clean the place is.
Click to expand...

Thank you but beside keeping the place clean, what else do we get after completing the program?
We already had a "clean and get a carton of beer" program that was working fine.
Not too much mess around here!
 
Some of the 5S can be practiced anywhere. Major production floors can save substantial amounts of money having the study done on their operations and then implementing them. Smaller companies of say 25 or less really gain little especially if it is an all out push. In a lot of situations it is an idea that sounds good to an owner but real hard to implement. It is more then just keeping a place clean it is about making the work place more productive. I think a good production manager could read the book and then see areas where their shop could benefit from some of the ideas and maybe sit down with co workers and discuss them. There was a topic in the book called the spaghetti something that basically would video tape a person during a couple hours and show how un organized that persons area was by how many times they had to move around to complete their job. One of mine was a press was washed 8 times in one shift and the operator had to take the water trays to the sink and return on each wash up. The simple solution was placing a 5 gallon water bucket next to the press. Having an owner or manager come in start preaching on how they want to be Toyota and planning on implementing everything in the book will lead to disaster. Here again this is my own experience.
 
Thank you RGPW17100 .
I was today in training and they actually were talking about the spaghetti chart.
It still seems a load of "I knew that", but in a long term it might be the right thing for somebody else in the factory, not specifically in my case
We are 50 people working and sometimes the "simple solution" (like the bigger bucket in your case) could save valuable time and stress.
 
5s is the foundation for any improvements you wish to make in your plant. If you want to get into Kaizen and process improvements you must go through the 5s process first and change people's culture. You cannot improve anything until you have Sorted, Set in Order, Shined,Standardized, and have a robust Audit system to Sustain the process. We have the 6th S also(Safety) 5s never ends and there is no completion it is practiced everyday. To become a World Class Company you cannot think or act 2nd class. 5s should be driven from the shop floor with peer audits of departments. These programs typically fail on the sustain part usually because we haven't changed the company culture.
Just my humble opinion
 
You nailed that one right on the head. We have sustained our 6s due to the fact that the guys on the floor bought into the program. Once the culture is established, upkeep and tweeking are a breeze. I WOULD NEVER WANT TO GO BACK TO PRE 5S DAYS....
 
Yes Kramer, buy in or lack of it is the main reason these type of programs fail. We found that it was important to give everyone in our plant some 5s training and then we picked some plant people and gave them an extra 1 day training session along with a 5s project. These people went back to the factory floor and drove the projects from there. They also made the Audit forms and scheduled the audits among the groups. We took before/after pictures for training purposes and the 'after' pictures were laminated and displayed at every work area to form part of the audit. Auditor looks at pictures of area and compares it to the current state of the area. Marks are deducted for non compliance. Anyone can audit any area because they know what it is supposed to look like.
 
Nice idea. Before 5s we had a good recycling program. Now, I dont think we throw anything away, well not that much. About a month ago we had a full blown wall to wall OSHA inspection and had not one violation in my Pressroom. I like to blieve that a large part was the change in the culture on the floor. Area is clean and orgainized=more attention to press up keep=safer practices=me looking good and the company......
 
5's if implemented properly can also be a huge boost in moral. Because it gives the employee an opportunity to affect their work space and see the fruits of their labor. It creates Teamwork and unity & an environment of Always a better way, reduces safety hazards, creates a standard for clear operating procedures which can drive down rework costs by eliminating confusion about any given task, also provides and environment of being respectful of your co-workers who share equipment. I know of case where 5's has failed and of cases where it has succeeded. the common areas of need for success are Manager commitment/support and the commitment to it being employee driven.
 
We are now full on. Things are moving and moving really fast. We were a bit slack at the beginning, but now we are full steam. I can see hope. I don't know yet about moral. Some are still "unbelievers".
 
Its sad to see so many negative posts on this subject but I can also sympathise. There is a lot of terminology associated with LEAN and Six Sigma and unfortunately when these terms are used people switch off as they have had a bad experience, especially in the print industry.

Lean manufacturing is not driven by the management of the company, it comes from the workers the people who actually do the job. The management role is to support and facilitate the production people, implementing what they already know should happen, making the job easier and less prone to error.

The foundations of Lean, 5s, Kaizan etc are things we already know because they are similar to the way that the schools we all attended operated. Think about it, everything was labeled with a place to live, paint, text books, reading books, rubbish, chalk, stationary, cleaning equipment etc etc. And guess what... it worked but when we start work in the big wide world of print we forget all about this.

Lean applied properly is not about reducing head count, it is about making sure that people are employed in as gainful a position as possible. Not working harder but working smarter (sorry for the cliche!)

Forget all the terminology, just stop, look, think, apply a little common sense in what you do and the rewards will come. It is not a magic switch that you turn on and everything will be fixed, it takes time to be come the norm!

Sermon over, good luck to you all
 
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