A practical case study of 5S/6S management in a printing company to help you better understand 5S/6S management!

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　　It is well known that 5S management, as one of the corporate management models, is widely applied in various industries, and effective 5S management can bring unexpected benefits to businesses. However, companies that have not implemented 5S activities still have some doubts about this – is 5S management really that good? Next, Hua Tianmou, a 5S management consultant, will use a practical case from a printing company’s 5S/6S management implementation to help you understand 5S/6S management better! 　　Company K is a printing enterprise that mainly deals in corrugated cardboard boxes for packaging, screen printing, and traditional offset printing services. Two years ago, the company implemented a “printing management information system,” which has indeed played a significant role in the highly competitive printing market. At this time, Mr. Wu, the company’s general manager, began to turn his attention toward the field of fully digital printing. 　　Take on the 5S Challenge The joint venture project under discussion between Company K and **Certain Company involves Company K introducing new digital printing equipment and processes, while simultaneously upgrading its printing information system. 　　However, the joint venture negotiations with Hong Kong businesses did not proceed smoothly. The other party raised many opinions regarding K Company’s factory management that Mr. Wu considered to be overly \"picky\": for example, the paper, ink, and tools in the warehouses and workshops were not arranged neatly enough; the floors were not clean enough, and there was so much grease on the printing machines that it was \"unbearable\"; the workers’ work uniforms were also \"unsatisfactory\"... Later, as part of the terms of the joint venture, the investors insisted on including \"the implementation of the 5S method for modern factory management\" as a necessary condition in the contract. 　　At first, Mr. Wu and the company’s management thought that the Hong Kong side was making a big deal out of a small issue. ““It’s just about doing some cleaning to make the environment more pleasant,” Wu always thought that such tasks were too trivial and had nothing to do with modern management or information-based management. 　　However, to ensure the smooth progress of the joint venture, President Wu agreed to everything. 　　A few months passed, and when President Wu reflected on those ‘trivial matters’, he felt as though he had been completely transformed. 　　“The Impact of Trivial Matters Promoting the “5S management method,” which was popular in Japanese manufacturing companies back in the 1950s, requires extensive preparation and training. 　　Literally, 5S refers to 5 terms that begin with the Romanization of the Japanese word “S”; they are: Sorting (Seiri), Straightening (Seiton), Cleaning (Seiso), Standardizing (Seiketsu), and Discipline (Shitsuke). 　　These 5 words, along with the meanings they convey, sound very simple. At first, everyone was dismissive. 　　A few days later, through on-site investigations and a large amount of **** and research materials, the leaders and employees of Company K were struck by a strong shock. The company signed a contract valid for half a year and arranged for Consultant Zheng to provide guidance. Consultant Zheng found that various types of paper were always piled up on the floor of the printing workshop – some of it was in use at that time, while other paper seemed to have been brought there by someone unknown. Waste ink, as well as removed rollers and screens, lay in a corner of the workshop, covered in grease. The tools used by the workers did not have any obvious markings, making it very difficult to find the right tool. 　　The situation in the warehouse isn’t much better either. 　　There is only a narrow, unenclosed passage between the shelves for storing paper, ink, and accessories and those for finished products, and it is common for product codes to not match the actual items. Sometimes, the leftover paper returned from the workshop gets mixed with the new sheets in reams, so no one can tell exactly how much was taken. 　　The consultant also checked the MIS system of which President Wu was so proud, and examined the several computers located in the planning department, sales department, and procurement department; he found that the files on those hard drives were just as messy. There are subdirectories created haphazardly everywhere, as well as files created randomly. There are some subdirectories and files whose contents are unknown unless you open them to take a look. Furthermore, Consultant Zheng found that there were a vast variety of document versions – outdated documents, temporary files, incorrect documents, and multiple copies of the same document – countless in number. 　　At Company K, for a long time, people have taken such phenomena for granted: the things one needs are always hard to find, while those one doesn’t need aren’t thrown away in time, seemingly causing constant inconvenience. Throughout the workshops, desks, filing cabinets, and computers, there are endless examples of this kind of uncertainty – uncertainty about whose things they are, when they were placed there, whether they’re still useful, whether they should be removed, or exactly how many there are.

“In such a situation,” Consultant Zheng asked President Wu bluntly, “how do you ensure product quality? How can you be sure that the data in the computers is accurate? How do you boost morale and strengthen employees’ sense of pride and mission?” With the last question, Consultant Zheng was referring to a dusty slogan posted on the wall: “Treat customers as gods, treat quality as life.” 　　Cleaning, organizing, and sanitizing The consultant divides the implementation of 5S at www.chinatpm.net into two main steps; the first is to carry out the first three \"S\"s, namely cleaning, organizing, and sanitizing. 　　Cleaning involves determining for each person, each production site (such as workstations, machines, areas, walls, storage shelves, etc.), each desk, and each computer what items are useful, and which ones are useless, rarely used, or already damaged. 　　Cleaning involves selecting out the defective items and unnecessary items that are mixed among good materials, good tools, good accessories, and good documents; those that need to be dealt with are processed on the spot, and those that should be discarded are thrown away without hesitation. “Especially electronic ‘garbage’,” warned consultant Zheng to the managers, “can significantly reduce your work efficiency; the constant need to search for, verify, and compare documents wastes a great deal of time.” ” 　　Organization means systematically labeling and distinguishing each of the “useful” items, tools, materials, and electronic files that have been identified. They should be placed in locations that are easily accessible and visible, in accordance with the logical layout of the workspace and the actual needs of work, so as to ensure they can be used whenever needed. 　　It sounds like “rectification” is simple, but from Mak’s experience, it is actually a very meticulous task. For example, computer file directories are the best example. 　　“Generally speaking, time, version, nature of the work, and file owner can all be key factors in classifying files,” said Consultant Zheng, who shared his own experiences to explain in detail what \"electronic office work\" entails. For a company that is gradually using computers and the Internet to manage production processes and handle daily tasks, figuring out how to manage the relationship between paper documents and electronic documents is an important aspect of developing good habits in \"electronic office work\". \"If the negative aspects of a manual working environment, such as dirt, disorder, and poor quality, are carried over into the electronic workflow, the consequences can be severe,\" said Consultant Zheng. 　　Cleaning, simply put, means doing a thorough cleaning. Identify problems and correct them promptly. However, “cleaning” is somewhat different from what people used to call a “big clean-up” in the past. “A thorough cleaning” merely addresses the issue of “environmental hygiene” in a straightforward manner, while the focus of “sweeping” is on “identifying the source of trash. In the words of Consultant Zheng, it means “conducting inspections, checks, and reviews while carrying out cleaning work”. A cheerful mood – As the 3S process (Sorting, Straightening, and Cleaning) progressed, the windows in the workshops and offices were cleaned, and areas that were difficult to keep clean were also tidyed up. The warehouses, file cabinets, file directories on computer hard drives, as well as various forms and records – all of these areas that required special attention – now have a completely new appearance. However, no one, including President Hou, thought there was anything special about the \"miracle cure\" introduced by Consultant Zheng. 　　However, President Wu admitted that there have been some subtle changes in everyone’s mental state: people seem to be in a much better mood than before, and the careless habits of those who didn’t pay attention to details have somewhat diminished; the statistical data submitted is no longer the messy kind that can’t stand scrutiny, and the work surfaces and office environments are indeed much neater. 　　Of course, this is not all of 5S management. Drawing on the results of the previous phase of improvement efforts, Consultant Zheng advised President Wu: \"The key points, or rather the challenges, of 5S management are not merely about correcting mistakes or cleaning up clutter; at its core, 5S management aims to foster a meticulous work ethic through continuous and effective improvement activities, as well as to cultivate professional qualities such as diligence, thrift, pragmatism, and discipline.\" ” 　　Following the consultant’s advice, the company began to advance to the second step of 5S management: implementing the last two \"S\"es, namely order (Seiketsu) and discipline (Shitsuke). 　　The basic meaning of cleanliness is \"how to maintain a clean state\", that is, how to keep up the effort to ensure that a clean and organized work environment becomes the standard for daily behavior. The basic meaning of good manners is \"cultivating one’s character and improving one’s upbringing\", which means voluntarily applying these fundamental principles and norms in daily work, restraining one’s own behavior, and thus fostering a certain set of standards.