Lessons in Lean from Hiroyuki Hirano

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Hiroyuki Hirano’s 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace transformed many manufacturing operations and became a model for efficiency. But the Japanese manufacturing expert’s work provides lessons for any organization looking for leaner processes.

Being a world-class manufacturer means being the fastest and lowest cost producer of quality goods in a competitive market. Those that have excess inventory, a cluttered workspace, and employees who aren’t following rigorous standardization practices will never get ahead of the competition.

You need a system that instills continuous improvement in your products and your manufacturing, distribution and sales processes. And that requires efficiency. In other words: Lean Practices, the philosophy of continually reducing waste in all work areas.

So, where do you start? Many managers have improved their systems by learning from the “5S Program,” the theory started by Japanese manufacturing expert Hiroyuki Hirano’s 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace.
The program is based on Japanese words that start with the letter S:

• Sort or Seiri
• Set in Order or Seiton
• Shine or Seison
• Standardize or Seiketsu
• Sustain or Shitsuke

(The literal translations of the words in Japanese are: housekeeping, workplace organization, cleanup, keep cleanliness and discipline.)

Here’s a breakdown to help make your business more lean and efficient:

Sort. Separate items you need from those you don’t, keeping only what’s immediately necessary to complete a job. Put a red tag on anything that isn’t required and evaluate each item. After employees review the tagged items, they are returned, stored, sold, or thrown out. This frees up valuable space and eliminates the clutter of broken tools, obsolete items and other junk that creates inefficiencies. This step eliminates the tendency to keep things around “just in case.”

Set in order. Organize the workspace by arranging items so they are easy to find and use. Label them so anyone can find them and put them away. In a manufacturing environment, setting in order includes painting floors, outlining work areas and installing shelving and cabinets for items such as trash cans, brooms, mops and buckets. The ideal is economy of time and motion with a reduction in wasted energy and excess inventory. How could you apply this to your work environment?

Shine. Sweep and clean everything around the working area. This helps employees take ownership of their work spaces and lets them more easily spot leaks, breakage, misalignments and other problems that lead to equipment breakdowns and production losses.

Standardize. Set up best-practice standards and involve employees in developing the standards. Follow the basic examples of some fast-food chains, major department stores or the military, then adapt them to your requirements.

Sustain. This is the most difficult step because it involves everyone in the organization understanding the rules and practising them. People have a natural tendency to resist change and return to the comfort of doing things the old way. Overcome that by getting staff members to help define different ways of doing jobs and coming up with procedures to keep the new status quo. For example, require certain tasks to be completed at certain times so that the whole system becomes the norm.

The thrust of the 5S system is to empower employees to control their jobs and their environment. When they actively maintain the workplace, they take more pride in what they do, gain greater job satisfaction and improve productivity. Ultimately, this leads to better quality and faster lead times, making your company more competitive and profitable.