1) While 5S is a valuable lean tool, it is not always the best starting point for a company's lean improvement journey and should not be seen as an end goal. 2) Pursuing a "5S first" approach can lead companies to focus too much on 5S as a program rather than using it to stimulate wider lean techniques, or focus on 5S when more impactful areas need attention first. 3) It is more important that a process team is actively engaged in improvement and thinking, rather than obsessing over 5S audit scores as a target; 5S must be integrated into daily work routines to be effective.

1. To 5S or Not to 5S
The popular tool isn’t the only, or even the best, way to initiate lean thinking
Many companies begin their lean improvement journey by first implementing
5S, the Japanese methodology minimizing errors and mistake proofing: seiri
(sort), seiton (set in order), seiso (shine), seiketsu (standardization), and
shitsuke (sustain).
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For many firms 5S seems like a logical starting point, and many have been
convinced by lean consultants that they should begin their lean journey by
implementing 5S. Yet, we should ask, is this right, or does it even make sense?
5S is a valuable member of the lean tool kit. Few would argue that it’s difficult
to make improvements or approach world-class levels of process excellence
with work areas that are poorly organized, unclean, unsafe, and not
standardized. 5S is a systematic way to improve workplace organization and
functioning by establishing the basic conditions that are essential to process
stability. In addition, 5S is often a good way for firms to familiarize themselves
with continuous improvement by involving and engaging workers to improve
workplace conditions and organization.
Strengths of 5S as an initial improvement activity include the following:
• Successful implementation of 5S requires that processes be defined and
process ownership assigned. This begins to create basic process team
structures with assigned responsibility and accountability for process
conditions and performance.
• Through 5S, process conditions start to become standardized, leading to the
surfacing of abnormal conditions, which in turn can lead to problem solving,
learning, and developing corrective and preventive actions.
• 5S begins to stimulate employee contributions and ideas for improvement. It
is important for firms that begin their improvement journey with 5S to nurture
the employee contributions which can flow out from 5S activity.

2. • Well-implemented, 5S can open up entry points into flow and pull,
equipment reliability, standardized work, and value analysis.
However, pursuing a “5S first” approach can have drawbacks and pitfalls,
including the following:
• If 5S is perceived as a program, it may take on a life of its own and become
an end goal of a firm’s improvement journey. The proper role of 5S is to
stimulate and shape a culture for the wider use of appropriate techniques that
improve the functioning of a firm’s process system.
• 5S may not be an appropriate starting point for improvement if there are
serious constraints to performance. For example, if a firm is capacity-
constrained, focusing improvement effort at the bottleneck process that is
limiting system capacity will have more effect than embarking on a
companywide 5S program.
• 5S is a tool. If a firm blindly pursues 5S without understanding its proper role
in a lean system, then the tool loses its effectiveness. If all you have is a
hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail. If you don’t have the
problems that 5S is designed to address, then don’t apply it—or at least get to
it in a proper logical sequence.
In connection with the point above, avoid the danger of becoming a 5S
“toolhead.” Business systems are sociotechnical environments. Tools and
techniques must work together with humans in an integrated and systemic
way to create value for customers. The blind pursuit and application of tools is
antithetical to real continuous improvement through people.
Many firms fail to integrate the basic practices and routines of 5S into their
daily work. If 5S is seen as something else that has to be done besides the
regular work, then it has not been well-implemented. 5S practices must
become routine and part of the work; that is the purpose of concepts like
standardized cleanup and visual control. Great 5S is transparent 5S.
Many firms become 5S “score crazy” and obsess about the scores on 5S
process audits, trying to get their processes to “level 5” as quickly as possible.
That is just end-gaining to a target without paying attention to the means for
getting there. What is more important than the 5S audit score is whether

3. contribution for improvement is forthcoming from a process team, and
whether the team is actively engaged and involved in thinking about improving
their processes and work. When visiting a plant, I never ask to see a 5S score; I
want to see what improvements the team has been thinking about, and
executing, since its last audit or check. That is a better indicator to the level
and quality of collaborative energy for improvement than a 5S score.
5S is not necessarily the only, or even the best way to initiate lean thinking and
practice in an organization. Choosing a pilot or target process, and then
beginning with standard work, can logically lead to value analysis and the
application of other lean tools, including 5S. Defining the work method in a
process provides a framework for evaluating whether proposed changes to a
process and its work methods are indeed improvements.
Many of the problems firms experience with respect to 5S result from the
current mania for copying. Much of the lean movement is built on the premise
of copying what other firms have done, and one firm in particular—Toyota. In
fact, just about every lean implementation can trace its roots back to the tools
and techniques of the Toyota Production System (TPS).
The problem with copying is that it works against thinking, inquiry, and
learning. Toyota’s approach to production grew out of its need to find a way to
effectively compete with mass producers that could take advantage of
economies of scale. The tools and techniques of the TPS are solutions to
executing high-variety, small-volume repetitive production in a cost-effective
way. Most important, as the developer of these solutions, Toyota had to think
and learn how to solve its production problems in a way that could enable it to
compete effectively.
Blindly copying the tools and techniques of TPS bypasses this thinking and
learning. It also assumes that your company has the same problems as Toyota
did, and that you can replicate Toyota’s success by implementing those tools in
a similar way within your business system.
Rather than a tool-based approach to improvement, I think it is useful to think
about the things that a firm has to do over and over again to improve its

4. capability for serving customers. This includes defining and managing core
processes such as those related to the supply chain, market demand, products
and services, and product realization. Driving business improvement of these
core processes is a key function of management. That improvement effort may
lead to the use of appropriate tools and techniques to solve problems, improve
process performance, and increase value-added benefits to customers. 5S may
be one of those of tools, but for any given process it may not necessarily be the
preferred starting point.
By all means, use 5S. However, use it intelligently and appropriately, and adapt
its principles to your situation. Avoid letting 5S become an end in itself, and
remember to effectively integrate it with your people and their work.