Engineering Management: 5S and Standardization

Engineering Management
Dr. Abu Bakr Siddique

Lecture Outline
• Standardization
• The 5S of Good Housekeeping
• Muda

Standards
• Efficient daily management of resources requires
standards.
• Standardization in the gemba often means the
translation of specified technological and
engineering requirements into day-to-day operations
of workers.
• Standards do not require technology or
sophistication, however, their implementation
requires a clear plan from management that must be
deployed in logical phases.

Operational Standards
• There are two types of standards:
– Managerial Standards
– Operational Standards
• Managerial standards relate to the internal purpose
of managing employees. They are necessary for
managing employees and for administrative
purposes.
• Examples of managerial standards are administrative
rules, personnel guidelines and policies, job
descriptions, and so on.

Operational Standards
• Operational standards deal with the way people do
their jobs to realize QCD (quality, cost, and
delivery).
• Operational standards relate to the external demand
of achieving QCD to satisfy customers.
• The standards referred to in this course are
operational standards.

Key Features of Standards
Standards have the following key features:
• 1. Standards provide a basis for both maintenance
and improvement.
• By definition, following standards means
maintenance, and upgrading standards means
improvement.
• As a result, one needs a standard in the first place in
order to either maintain it or improve upon it.

2. Standards represent the best, easiest, and safest way
to do a job.
• Standards reflect many years of wisdom and know-
how on the part of employees in doing their jobs.
• When management maintains and improves
standards, those standards become the most
efficient, safe, and cost-effective way of doing the
job.

• 3. Standards offer the best way to preserve know-
how and expertise.
• If an employee knows the best way to do the job and
leaves without sharing that knowledge, his or her
know-how will also leave.
• Only by standardizing and institutionalizing such
know-how within the company does it stay in the
company, regardless of the comings and goings of
its individual workers.

• 4. Standards provide a way to measure performance.
• With established standards, managers can evaluate
job performance.
• Without standards, there is no fair way to do this.

• 5. Standards show the relationship between cause and
effect.
• Having no standards (or not following standards) will
lead to abnormalities, variability and waste. But if
standards are implemented, management can determine
the cause of abnormalities. Therefore, standards provide
a means for preventing recurrence of errors and
minimizing variability.
• Every time problems or irregularities arise, the manager
must investigate, identify the root cause, and revise the
existing standards or implement new ones to prevent
recurrence.

Toyota Business Practice
• Many companies have their own standard way
of solving problems.
• Today, the so-called A3 problem-solving
method has become increasingly popular.
• The A3 refers only to the paper size that is the
standard for summarizing the problem-solving
story.

• The A3 problem-solving approach which comes
from Toyota follows an eight-step approach and is
also called the Toyota Business Practice (TBP).
• TBP was born in the early 2000s in an effort to
standardize and strengthen problem solving as
Toyota operations became increasingly globalized.
• No matter how big or small the problem is you must
be able to summarize the problem and solution on an
A3 paper.

• The eight steps of the TBP problem-solving
approach are:
• 1. Clarify the problem.
• 2. Break down the problem.
• 3. Set a target to be achieved.
• 4. Analyze the root cause.
• 5. Develop countermeasures.
• 6. See countermeasures through.
• 7. Evaluate both results and process.
• 8. Standardize successful processes.

• Here is how this process would map to an A3
document for the purpose of problem solving

TBP
is
merely
a
well
thought
through
PDCA.

• The problem statement must measurably define “the
gap” between the current situation and the target
condition.
• The correct way to do define a problem is to first
define a perfect state – for example ideal quality
parts with zero waste every time.
• Next you’re going to grasp the problem in reality.
You will look at your current situation and think of
what you can do that can enable you to get closest to
the ideal situation.

• Then think of why you have not been doing this
thing before, which would have got you closer to the
ideal situation.
• What this process does is clearly point out the
problem with your current state. The more time
spent getting the problem statement right, the less
time will be needed to actually address the problem.
• You must know why did you pick this problem and
how you prioritized it ?

• Only when you are clear about the problem can you
break it down into smaller problems.
• Most people do not take out the time to break down
the problem properly. You need to break the vague
problem down into a very specific problem.
• Breaking down the problem allows you to set
modest, but still aggressive, challenging targets
(which is the third step in the TBP).

• Your target will either decrease, improve or eliminate
(D.I.E). By how much will you decrease or improve
needs to be specified. By when will you achieve this
target should also be listed.
• The next step is to find the root cause of the problem.
There are many tools and methods for root cause
analysis, but the one you must know and use is the five-
whys analysis.
• It is a simple and powerful tool and must be used
properly and logically to arrive at potential root causes.

• The 5 Whys technique is one that advocates asking
why as many times as you need to until you get to
the root cause of the problem.
• The idea is to stop asking why when you have
arrived at a probable root cause of the problem,
which may come before or after the 5th why.
• The technique requires that you remain objective all
through. An illustration of the 5 Whys technique is
given on the following slide.

• Problem: Our company lost sales of $10M in
2011.
• Why? Our demand forecasts were constantly wrong.
• Why? We did not get any input from the field
• Why? The field agents did not have access to
systems
• Why? The IT department did not allocate any
systems to them
• Why? Management did not think it was a priority
(root cause)

• Next you select countermeasures. Countermeasures
mean that you have to develop a plan for who's
going to do what, when they are going to do it and
how they're going to proceed.
• Step 6 (See Countermeasures through) is the Do step
in the PDCA cycle. Here you should follow the plan
and note deviations.
• In the doing stage you're going to plan something;
you're going to do it and check what happens; make
adjustments.

• So, in fact, in some sense at every one of these steps it's
a plan, do, check, act cycle within a larger plan, do,
check, act cycle.
• Step 7 (Evaluate both results and processes) is the check
phase of the PDCA cycle. In this stage you will reflect
on what happens both in terms of results and the
processes.
• So you may have gotten results and been lucky because
of one big idea that worked, but it was one person's
idea; that person was the manager; nobody else was
engaged; nobody else was developed. The process
failed even though the results looked good.

• The last step (Standardize and share successful
practices) refers to the Act stage of the PDCA cycle.
• You will do another reflection on the entire process,
and then you will standardize what works, and
spread what you think should be spread.
• The spread is something that Toyota calls Yokoten,
which means transplanting a precious plant from one
environment to another. You don't mindlessly
implement best practices; you have to think deeply
about your new and previous conditions.

The Five S (5S) of Good
Housekeeping

The Five S (5S) of Good
Housekeeping
• The kaizen principle of 5S stands for five Japanese
words that constitute good workplace organization.
These five points of housekeeping are:
– Seiri: Remove unnecessary items
– Seiton: Arrange items in an orderly manner
– Seiso: Keep working environment clean
– Seiketsu: Make the previous three steps a routine
– Shitsuke: Develop the self-discipline to
standardize these steps.

Good House Keeping in 5 Steps
• 1. Seiri (Sort): Distinguish between necessary and
unnecessary items in the gemba, and discard the latter.
• The first step of housekeeping, seiri, entails classifying
items in the gemba into two categories—necessary and
unnecessary—and discarding or removing the latter
from the gemba.
• An easy rule of thumb is to remove anything that will
not be used within the next 30 days. Things that will
not be needed within the next 30 days but may be
needed at some point in the future are moved to their
rightful places (such as the warehouse in the case of
supplies).

• 2. Seiton (Straighten): Arrange all items remaining
after seiri in an orderly manner.
• Once seiri has been carried out, we are only left with
the items that are needed. But these needed items are
of no use if they are stored too far from the
workstation or in a place where they cannot be found.
• Seiton means classifying items by use and arranging
them accordingly to minimize search time and effort.
To do this, each item must have a designated name,
address, and volume.

• 3. Seiso (Scrub): Keep machines and working
environments clean.
•
• Seiso means cleaning the working environment,
including machines and tools, as well as the floors,
walls, and other areas of the workplace.
• An operator cleaning a machine can find many mal
functions. Once these problems are recognized, they
are easily fixed. Hence, Seiso in a way is like
checking.

• 4. Seiketsu (Systematize): Make the previous three
steps a routine, i.e. standardize work practices.
• Seiketsu is to continuously work on seiri, seiton, and
seiso every day.
• It is easy to go through the process of seiri once and
make some improvements, but without an effort to
continue such activities, the situation soon will be
back to where it started. Management must deploy
systems and procedures that ensure the continuity of
seiri, seiton, and seiso.

• 5. Shitsuke (Standardize): Build self-discipline to
both maintain and improve standards.
• Shitsuke means to develop self -discipline.
• That is to say that employees who practice seiri,
seiton and seiso continuously (seiketsu) must then
go on to standardize these steps and thereafter
improve these standards through kaizen. This
requires self-discipline.

Benefits of 5S
– Creating clean, sanitary, pleasant, and safe working
environments.
– It is often a first step in a continuous improvement
drive that aims to eliminate waste, boost productivity
and increase profits.
– To realize the full benefits of 5S, it has to be
functional. Some businesses do what is referred to as
‘aesthetic 5S i.e. they go through the motions without
incorporating it into company culture. 5S has to part
of day-to-day operations.

5S in the Service Sector
• 5S has grown increasingly popular in the service
sector. A study completed by the International
Research Journal of Engineering and Technology
documents how 5S increased the competitiveness of a
number of hospitals, hotels, banks and post-secondary
institutions.
• The 5S method also applies to digital environments.
An officer worker can be more productive when
extraneous files and software are removed from their
computers, for instance, because it tends to make
important materials more readily accessible.

• The key is to identify which tasks must be done and
which materials (forms, manuals, support contacts
and software) are needed to complete them.
• To make them more accessible, apply the first three
steps of 5S – sort, set in order and shine – to your
company’s shared drives and intranet system, along
with the computers of individual employees.
• In fact, many of us follow 5S principles to manage
our emails.

• We organize incoming messages by moving them
into appropriate folders, often by topic or client.
This way, they are easier to find when we need
them.
• Fewer of us “shine” our email folders by regularly
identifying old messages and deleting them.

Muda
• Work is a series of processes or steps starting with
various inputs and raw materials and ending in a
final product or service.
• At each process, value is added to the product (or, in
the service sector, to the document or other piece of
information), and then the product (or service) is
sent on to the next process.
• The resources at each process—people and
machines—either do add value or do not add value.
Muda refers to any activity that does not add value.

Muda Elimination
• Value of each process can be improved by
eliminating Muda. However, eliminating further
muda will become difficult as product quality
improves.
• Further muda elimination requires standardizing best
practices and improving upon them, which in turn
requires good housekeeping.
• Therefore, facilities where muda has been
eliminated are orderly and show a high level of 5S
discipline.

Types of Muda
• Muda in the gemba is classified according to the
following seven categories:
• 1. Muda of overproduction
• 2. Muda of inventory
• 3. Muda of defects
• 4. Muda of transport
• 5. Muda of motion
• 6. Muda of waiting
• 7. Muda of over-processing

Muda of Overproduction
• Muda of overproduction results from getting ahead
of the production schedule.
• This type of muda is a function of the mentality of
the area supervisor, who feels compelled to produce
more than necessary just to be on the safe side.
• In a just -in- time (JIT) system being ahead of the
production schedule is regarded as worse than being
behind it.

Muda of Overproduction
• Producing more than necessary results in
tremendous waste: consumption of raw materials
before they are needed, wasteful input of personnel
and utilities, additions of machinery, the need for
additional space to store excess inventory, and added
transportation and administrative costs.
• Overproduction gives people a false sense of
security, helps to cover up all sorts of problems, and
obscures information that can provide clues for
kaizen on the shop floor.

Muda of Inventory
• Final products, semi-finished products, or parts and
supplies kept in inventory do not add any value.
• Rather, they add to the cost of operations by
occupying space, requiring additional equipment
and facilities (such as warehouses, forklifts, and
computerized conveyer systems).
• In addition, a warehouse requires additional
personnel for operation and administration.

Muda of Inventory
• Inventory results from overproduction.
• Excess items stay in inventory and gather dust. Their
quality deteriorates over time. Even worse, they
could be destroyed by a fire or other disaster.
• When an inventory level is high, nobody gets
serious enough to deal with problems such as
quality, machine downtime, and absenteeism.
Therefore, a high level of inventory makes kaizen
difficult.

Muda of Defects
• Whenever defects occur, extra costs are incurred in
reworking the part, rescheduling production, etc.
This results in additional labor costs, more time in
the “Work-in-progress” stage.
• Defects, in practice, can sometimes double the cost
of a product.
• Defects should not be passed on to the consumer
and should be taken as a loss.

Muda of Transport
• Transport (such as movement via trucks, forklifts,
and conveyers) is an essential part of operations.
• Each time a product is moved it stands the risk of
being damaged, lost, or delayed, on top of being a
cost for no added value.
• Transportation does not make any transformations to
the product that the consumer is willing to pay for,
and is a highly visible form of muda.

Muda of Motion
• Not to be confused with Transport, Motion refers to the
damage that the production process inflicts on the
equipment or person that creates the product, not the
damage to products themselves.
• For example, discrete events, like accidents that injure
workers and damage equipment, or even wear and tear,
are also part of the consideration.
• Any motion of a person’s body that is not directly
related to adding value is unproductive. The need for an
operator to carry a heavy object for a distance can be
eliminated by rearranging the workplace.

Muda of Waiting
• Time is always of the essence in production. Whenever
goods are not in transport or being processed, they are
in a stand still waiting for the next production step.
• In traditional processes, goods spend a large part of
their individual product life waiting to be worked on.
This is referred to as muda of waiting.
• Muda of waiting occurs because of line imbalances,
lack of parts, machine downtime, or when the operator
is simply monitoring a machine as the machine
performs a value-adding job.

Muda of Over-Processing
• Muda during processing arises as a result of poor
technology (e.g. an old technology not capable of
producing quality products) or inadequate product
design (e.g. an unduly long approach).
• Muda of over-processing occurs any time more work is
done on a piece beyond what is required by a customer,
i.e. when unnecessary activity is carried out.
• This includes using components that are more precise,
complex, higher quality or expensive than absolutely
required.

Engineering Management: 5S and Standardization

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