5C Workplace Organization for Lean Manufacturing

5C workplace organization for lean manufacturing is a method to ensure that your working environment is organized into a safe, efficient, ergonomic working space with clear visual management. 5C has been developed from the Japanese tool 5S (Part of Lean Manufacturing) and is basically the same thing by a different name. The idea of implementing 5C is to eliminate or reduce the impact of the seven wastes on your working environment.

The steps of Lean Manufacturing 5C Workplace Organisation are;

C1 Clearing (Seiri, Sort)

C2 Configure (Seiton, Set in order)

C3 Clean and Check (Seiso, Shine & Check)

C4 Conformity (Seiketsu, Standardise)

C5 Consensus or Custom & Practice (Shitsuke, Sustain)

This is a westernized version of the original 5S tool which forms one of the most important foundation stones of Lean Manufacturing. This is often the first tool that a company will implement in its drive to improve their business performance through lean manufacturing, 5C or 5S is just as effective if implemented as a stand alone tool. Implementing 5C workplace organization is a very important first step in achieving Lean production processes or even a lean office environment.

Below I will detail out the main steps of 5C Workplace Organisation, for more information regarding benefits, implementation and hiring a trainer to help you put in place please look at the following hubs for 5S and remember that 5C and 5S are as applicable in a service or office based environment as they are on the factory floor. Typical improvements through applying the principles of 5C are efficiency improvements in the order of 10% to 30%. The benefits of lean manufacturing are well documented and proven over and over again.

5S;The various steps of 5S and the implementation of 5S the original Japanese version of the 5C workplace organisation tool.

5S Benefits; The benefits and origins of implementing 5S, the same benefits can be attributed to 5C workplace organisation.

5S Training; How to source, hire and check the effectiveness of training for 5S or 5C workplace organisation, you will need to get yourself an expert in Lean manufacturing 5C to have a smooth and effective introduction of 5C.

5S Office; application of 5S or 5C in the office environment can be as important as for your production processes, in fact in many cases even more important.

Remember if you really want to implement 5C / 5S or any other lean manufacturing tool then it is important to either get lean training or invest in a lean consultant.

What would you rather have?

A workplace that is laid out in a visually obvious manner in which you can quickly see if everything is functioning as it should be? In which every item has a place and is in that place? A workplace that is laid out in a safe and ergonomic manner to ensure your operators safety and well being? A production process (or even office process) that is efficient and free from delays? A workplace that can showcase your lean production processes to customers and potential customers?

or;

A production process that is cluttered, visually confusing, unsafe and demanding on your operators? One which is full of delays and inefficiencies? One that has to be tidied and repainted every time someone visits?

I know which I would prefer! 5C Workplace organisation can help you gain many benefits and is easy to implement, usually at minimal cost.

Just as with 5S the first step of 5C Workplace Organization is Clearing, removing all of the unwanted clutter from the workplace to ensure that all that is left are the items that are required.

Obvious junk should be treated as that and skipped to remove them from the workplace, obviously recyclable materials should be recycled where possible such as valuable metals and so on.

Items that you are not sure about should be placed into a quarantine area until later and items that are not required or broken that are too difficult to move should be identified with a red tag.

At the end of this step of 5C, the whole team along with relevant members of management and other departments need to review the items that have been quarantined along with the red tagged items and agree disposition. Either put back in the workplace, deep storage or junk.

As with the second step in 5S, this step of 5C workplace organization is about organizing or “configuring” the tools, equipment and materials required in the workspace. There should be a defined space for everything and everything should be in it’s place. Locations should be labeled or it should be clear what belongs there through the use of shadow boards and the like. Gangways, locations for incoming and finished materials should all be identified to that everything is clear to both the people that work there as well as an outsider.

In deciding where items belong you should assess how often the item is used, those items that are used the most frequently should be placed as close as possible to where they are required whereas those that are needed only periodically can be stored further away to give space for the more frequently used items. The Pareto (80:20) rule usually comes into effect here, only 20% of your items being used 80% of the time.

Consider also the ease of use and handling, do not place heavy items on high or low shelves as the user could injure themselves when retrieving them. Consider how handling can be achieved without the use (and required space for) of heavy handling equipment, things such as roller tables can be used to push tools by hand into your machines.

When you look at your layout and location of items you need to consider the seven wastes, everything you do should be to reduce these wastes. Increase profit through waste reduction is a useful hub to look at for more information.

The third stage of 5C workplace organization Clean and check is about clearing down the area and ensuring that everything is functioning as it should be, keeping everything clean and tidy will ensure that not only do you have an effective marketing tool for your business but oil leaks and other problems become immediately obvious.

This step needs to be formalized to ensure ongoing cleanliness, responsibilities need to be defined and cleaning sheets detailing, who, what, how, where and when need to be compiled.

Stage four of 5C workplace organization is Conformity; having a standardised way of doing things across our processes and are we doing what we say we will do? Audits should be defined and conducted of all areas to ensure that we maintain the 5C improvements. Audits typically are scored in a non-subjective manner enabling comparisons to be made between areas and for improvement progress to be monitored.

Often companies will have awards for the best performing areas enabling competition between different areas in the factory and the offices.

Consensus / Custom & Practice is the fifth stage of 5C workplace organization and is about ensuring that the first 4 steps are part of the culture of the business and are maintained and continually improved. Far too often businesses go to the effort of implementing the first 3 or 4 steps of 5C or 5S only to allow the improvements made to slowly dissolve.

People begin to ignore the markings on the floor designating where materials belong, tools do not get put away, shadow boards start to empty, audits are not conducted and graphs are not updated. When this happens it actually looks worse than if you had never done 5C or 5S in the first place as it shows a lack of discipline in your management, supervision and general employees.

Don’t let this happen, the benefits of implementing lean manufacturing, specifically 5C or 5S are too great to let slide. Maintain the benefits that you gain and you will be in a better position to compete within your marketplace.

The following are useful links for business support and lean manufacturing resources.

http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/ Institute for Manufacturing, which is part of the engineering department at Cambridge University. They often have students or consultants who can be approached to help implement improvement projects such as 5C.

http://www.thecqi.org/ The Chartered Quality Institute again is a useful place to find out more business improvement ideas such as lean manufacturing.

http://asq.org/ American Society of Quality can also aid you in finding the right people to help you implement business improvement ideas and have huge amounts of information to help you.

http://www.nam.org/ American National Association of Manufacturers can help you with meeting other companies in similar situations to yourself who may be implementing ideas such as 5C or lean manufacturing.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/ UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills can help you with training, funding for training and point you in the direction of a trainer or consultant to help you implement Lean manufacturing 5C.

http://trade.gov/ International Trade Administration USA

http://www.mas.bis.gov.uk/ UK Manufacturing Advisory Service provide free diagnostic services and very low cost (or free) project implementation to improve your business. Most of which is based on the principles of Lean Manufacturing.

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/home UK Business Link can help you with funding and sourcing and appointing trainers and consultants for 5C and Lean Manufacturing implementations to help improve your business performance.

http://www.business.gov/ US Business Link can help you gain lean production processes in much the same way the UK business link can.

http://www2.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/production_system/index.html Toyota is always worth a look at with them being the originators of Lean Manufacturing as we see it today.

http://www.smmt.co.uk Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders can help with support and many publications around the principles of Lean manufacturing including 5C.

http://www.aiag.org/scriptcontent/index.cfm Automotive Industry Action Group is the American verion of the SMMT and can help you with 5C and Lean Manufacturing in much the same way.

These Links will help you to find more information regarding 5C workplace organisation and other lean manufacturing concepts and principles to help you improve your business and gain Lean processes.