In graduate school, while conducting NASA funded Aviation Human Factors research, one aspect stood out. The primary modality of interaction for humans in our world is visual. Though the research focal point wasn’t a typical workplace environment (it was a jetliner cockpit), the system’s center, the human being, was the same.
5S, which originated in Japan as part of their highly successful ‘Just in Time’ philosophy, is a series of concepts described by five Japanese words forming English equivalents starting with the letter ‘s.’ Translated, the words are sort, set, shine, standardize, and sustain. Each idea builds on the previous.
First, sort identifies what is needed while removing unnecessary materials from the workspace. Set in order makes “a place for everything and everything a place,” while shine activities keep the work area clean. Standardization ensures the 5S system is understood across the organization and sustain, also translated as self-discipline, is a commitment to the first four.
There is little question that, at its core, 5S is a visual system. One could easily communicate these principles with a series of before and after pictures, which I did during my career conducting employee training sessions. Given this fact, I strongly recommend a book by Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, Visual Workplace: Visual Thinking. The second edition was published in 2017.
I was fortunate enough to attend one of the author’s lectures. Dr. Galsworth is one of the Americans who first translated the then-new Japanese production concepts and systems into English, introducing them to the West. A link to the work is below, and it is also on Amazon.
Much of the language used will be familiar to those knowledgeable of LEAN, but with an acute focus toward visual systems with over a hundred pictures. While the myriad of techniques described in the book adheres to traditional 5S, this work goes well beyond that, including the concepts of visual displays, metrics, controls, and much more.
I hope you enjoy it,
Rob Wilson, Retired engineering professional and fiction novelist
The author holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering, and an MS in Industrial Engineering funded through NASA sponsored Aviation Human Factors research. After college, his career as a Quality and Manufacturing Engineer in the electronics industry, much of it avionics, utilized a wide range of Lean concepts. He also served in a training capacity for production personnel in 5S and ergonomics and is now a military fiction novelist.