What is a 5S Team?

Lean manufacturing has changed the shape of businesses, improving processes for the better. 5S teams, or lean teams, enable companies to facilitate positive change in the workplace and respond to problems in a timely manner. Strictly speaking, a 5S team is a group of individuals empowered to make quick decisions and take actions that benefit their company.

Benefits of a 5S Team

Implementing a 5S team in your facility offers countless benefits that can enhance your workplace's efficiency, safety, and productivity. Here are some key advantages:

Increased Efficiency: A 5S team organizes the workplace to reduce unnecessary clutter and streamline processes. This results in a more efficient lean manufacturing workflow where employees can easily find tools and materials, reducing downtime and increasing productivity.

Improved Safety: By organizing and maintaining a clean work environment, a 5S team helps to identify and remove potential hazards. Clearly labeled and well-organized workspaces while adhering to OSHA signage requirements minimize the risk of accidents and injuries, promoting a safer visual factory for all employees.

Reduced Waste: The 5S methodology emphasizes the elimination of waste through better organization and standardization. This brings about a more efficient use of resources, reducing excess inventory, unnecessary motion, and overproduction, which can save costs and improve the bottom line.

Consistent Quality: Standardizing work processes and maintaining organized workstations help ensure that tasks are performed consistently and correctly. This reduces inconsistency in production, which yields higher quality products and services.

Sustained Discipline: A 5S team instills a culture of continuous improvement and discipline. Regular audits and adherence to lean principles encourage employees to maintain the standards, leading to long-term improvements and continuous organizational excellence.

Better Utilization of Space: Proper organization and efficient use of space are key components of the 5S methodology. By optimizing workspace layout, a 5S team can free up valuable floor space, allowing for better movement, storage, and utilization of the facility.

Implementing a 5S team is a strategic move that not only enhances efficiency but also creates a safer, more enjoyable work environment, which contributes to the overall success of the organization.

Developing a 5S Team

Creating an effective lean manufacturing team requires businesses to define and form teams around their current processes. For these teams to be effective, they must be comprised of workers from each relevant department and be empowered to make 5S process improvements.

Forming The Team

Once the various processes have been defined, it's time to create teams that can focus on improving individual processes by implementing the 5S methodology. This does not mean that the team should only consist of workers in the same department. Let's, for example, look at an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) company. The EPC's current proposal process frequently results in bids that are overpriced (causing the company to lose the bid) or underpriced (reducing the company's revenue).

The current problems might be the result of poor communication among the stakeholders in the proposal process. A properly developed 5S team could improve communication and lead to positive change by including people from each department involved in the proposal process. This would make for a much smoother 5S process that drives better results. Instead of making changes based on a single perspective (that of the proposal group), changes would account for the "entire" proposal process, which could involve:

• Purchasing
• Engineering
• Project management
• Logistics
• The field service team

By forming a 5S team with members from each relevant department, the team can effectively identify problems and develop targeted solutions that improve their assigned 5S process and visual factory.

Empowering The Team based on Lean Principles

Traditional business structure has resulted in an often vertical power structure that accepts minimal input from employees down the line, making it difficult to improve processes in a timely manner. A lean team addresses this problem by empowering each team to make decisions and facilitate change. The roles and responsibilities of each team need to be clearly identified, as well as the method for improving processes. Each team must then be empowered to make reasonable changes without having to move through the entire command structure.

5S Team Hierarchy

Lean teams function in a hierarchy that includes all levels of the business. There should be a group leader that facilitates communication and lean manufacturing improvements among several teams. Each team, in turn, has a team leader responsible for implementing reasonable improvements based on lean principles and getting approval from group leaders. Each team member is responsible for finding and solving problems in their assigned area. It's best to find solutions that are aligned with lean principles. Once a potential solution is identified, team members get together with the team leader and develop the solution.

A key aspect of a 5S team's structure is that each group is empowered to implement improvements within its scope of responsibility. When an improvement impacts multiple groups, the group leaders bring the idea to upper management for approval and additional support. Overall, this structure ensures that each team has the ability to implement change, ensuring that the lean program gains the momentum that it needs.

Implementing a 5S Team

Implementing a 5S team requires total involvement from the top of an organization to the bottom. Every worker, supervisor, and manager must be dedicated to positive change. Workers should expect lean manufacturing practices to improve, and management should provide the support needed to create change. For this to happen, there needs to be a fundamental shift in workplace culture. Managers must be trained to be leaders and facilitators of change, and team members need to learn to continuously improve processes based on lean principles.

While changing the workplace culture can be difficult, lean manufacturing tools like Kaizen, 5 Whys, and Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) can help with this shift.

Kaizen is a lean manufacturing philosophy of continuous improvement that requires every worker, from the CEO to the shop floor assistant, to be involved in improving business practices. Kaizen can help with this shift by creating a culture where workers improve practices each day and where management provides the support needed for positive change.

Five Whys enable workers to find the origin of a problem and fix it, rather than focusing on surface-level issues that will not solve the problem. As its name suggests, Five Whys involves employees asking "why" until the problem's root cause is found.

PDCA is a lean principles tool that resolves issues with four steps: Plan, Do, Check, Act. Once a problem is found, this tool enables team members to address it by systematically creating a solution, testing it, reviewing its success, and applying it.

DuraLabel 5S Team Solutions

Having a 5S team create a visual factory with durable signs and labels is one step a facility can take to implement the 5S methodology. DuraLabel offers premade and custom signage solutions to create an organized and safe visual factory. Enhance your worksite with the DuraLabel Kodiak Max 5S Kit. The kit includes the DuraLabel Kodiak Max Industrial Sign and Label Print System and premium vinyl and ribbons, making it the ideal solution for implementing a 5S system in your facility.

DuraLabel offers a comprehensive lean manufacturing content library that can provide the tools lean teams need to be successful. Learn how to kick-start Kaizen in your workplace to create a workplace culture of continuous improvement with our in-depth Best Practice Guide to Kaizen. By developing a culture of continuous improvement, companies will have the foundation they need to form effective 5S teams.

Developing a lean team requires a lot of preparation and training. Use our free 5S Instant Action Guide to educate your staff on the 5S methodology. Get your copy below!