Amit Choudhary

Part 1 – 5s

In continuation to my previous article (https://bit.ly/3vUZoiy) on the importance of a few skills in the corporate, I promised to take up a few common frameworks one should know. This series of articles named “Why should corporate have all the fun?” will focus on introducing these concepts.

As I said before, the concepts which are used in the life, are the concepts implemented in corporates too. All the frameworks are developed by someone’s experience, who frames the method in an easy-to-understand concept. This is why, I emphasize that the concepts used in corporates are also useful in our day-to-day life. To become our full potential, we shall start with wherever we are. So let us start with the basic concept of 5s, which is as powerful as simple. Why should corporate have all the fun? Implement it in your life and see the magic.

Knowingly or unknowingly, few of us are using 5s in our life. However, most of us understand it, but never implements. Even most of the people who implement it in their office, does not implement it in their life. You may feel that when you keep your workstation and home cluttered, your creative cells work better. You may like to remain messy, but just imagine, if you are so creative being messy, what will happen, when you are not. Try it once, and it would give amazing results. But a word of warning, 5s can be addictive.

1^st S – SORT (Seiri in Japanese)

I had no knowledge of 5s when I joined a life insurance company in India. But when they assigned me a branch operation, which had a history of medical and financial errors; I decided to keep me untouched of the environment. For this, I had to fix the reasons. To fix, I had to understand. To understand, I needed to clear all the confusions. So, I simply called the whole team on a Saturday and sorted all the documents – physical as well as soft copies. I could do that as I followed the same principle in my life. Later in my life, I realized that I implemented this tool at that time. I sorted all the items in three categories:

1. Items not required.
2. Items definitely required.
3. Items in confusion

We can ask ourselves certain questions while sorting like – why we need this item, when was it used the last time, how frequently do we use it, who will use it, is it really needed. We generally are in a habit to keep items for years in the anticipation of using it one day, while things are never used or can easily be found on rent. At times, storage is expensive than the cost of the item.

By applying sorting, we can sort all our work we do in life. What are the activities we do every day, which are not at all contributing to our future – TV, games, poor financial management, upkeep of ancient clothes and stationery. Things we are still confused of – that inspirational video we see daily but do nothing about it, talking to a friend every day assuming one day he will find us a job. Things absolutely necessary for us – meditation, exercise, actions we take. Look into your thoughts – sort them too.

2^nd S – SET IN ORDER (Seiton in Japanese)

Set the sorted items in an order.

1. Discard, recycle, throw, sell or delete all such items which are not needed.
2. Keep the items which you definitely know that will be needed.
3. Quarantine or store separately the items whose judgement would be taken later.

In this phase, we need to think through, how to put the items to minimize the waste. In business (and in lean), a waste is a defect, unused skills, waiting, unnecessary movement, excess inventory or overprocessing, etc.

Each item should have a designated place, items should be placed in a logical way, in ergonomic locations. We need to find who uses those items, when is it used, frequency, we can group the items by type, etc.

Similarly, you can show your bad and good habits their correct place! As Benjamin Franklin said, “A place for everything, everything in its place.”

3^rd S – Shine (Seiso in Japanese)

Now this may seem daunting, or you may feel to leave it with janitors, but trust me, what you can do with your things, can be best done by you. Dusting, cleaning, emptying recycle bin, cleaning temporary files, clearing cache and history, a drive needs to start. The moment you end your shining process, you would feel such a comfort that you will find yourself looking into new and fresh ideas automatically.

At this stage, you can shine yourself too 😊. Detoxify your body at least once a few months, detoxify your mind at least once a few months. Cleaning of the body and thoughts would be the most important step while applying 5s in your life. I am not trying to be a preacher, I am simply giving words to the bitter facts, we all know. We all know what to do and how to do, but we rarely do.

4^th S – Standardize (Seiketsu in Japanese)

Now that you have everything uncluttered and shiny, you can generate a standard operating procedure to keep things intact. When you set a procedure and follow it, it gradually becomes your habit. It is difficult to break a habit and hence your 5s outcome.

Make a routine, and gradually make it your ritual. You will never miss it. You can use stickers to start with, fix places for your items so that it becomes easy to find it.

5^th S – Sustain (Shitsuke in Japanese)

Sustaining a 5s achievement is the toughest step of the project.

Make a schedule on when you would evaluate your project outcome. It is possible now that you find items in use moved to storage and vice versa. You may have flipped your ambition by now. You need to reevaluate what needs to be where. What shall be the priority? Whatever you find, change it, but sustain the overall outcome. If you do not keep a check and keep changing, you surely will deviate.

This was the summary of what 5s steps mean. When you will start implementing it wherever you are, you will gradually find the methods to use it in your life. My intention of summarizing these tools in this series is that implementation only. Learning these tools will increase your communication and confidence. Also, it helps in problem solving. I will close it with a short story.

An organization once decided to send the managers to a Japanese lean expert to learn 5s. The managers were against the decision, as they already knew so much about 5s. They suggested to use the budget in learning some advanced tool. But the senior management was adamant. As they had no choice, they all reached the expert’s venue.

They were getting frustrated of the teachings with each passing day. They could not figure out that how can someone talk on such a small and simple topic for five days. They already implemented 5s in so many of their previous projects. Finally on the 3^rd day end, they decided to speak up.

They told the expert, “We have already known so much about 5s and it is such a simple tool to implement that we are getting bored. Would not it be better if you provide us with some Japanese case studies in rest of the 2 days. In place of learning the same old Standardize and Sustain, we will learn something new.”

The expert thought for a while and said, “Okay, we will take up a few case studies tomorrow.”

The expert said, “You give your hotel room’s keys to the colleague sitting next to you, they will go to your room and provide you the marks on your 5s understanding.” They all were shocked. Nobody was ready to give the keys. Because 5s was in their workstation, not attitude.

The next day, all the managers came decked up and excited. The expert came, smiled on each of them and told them that he was ready with the case studies. He said, “Before I take up the case studies, I want to conduct a small activity. Are you comfortable?”

They all nodded.