5S in office environment (especially for government offices)

This article is in series of my blogs on 5S implementation in Indian context. Incase concept of 5S is new for you, please refer my others posts on 5S.

Today I am going to discuss about 5S in government offices. One may rightly think that 5S is industry related concept, how it is going to benefit the office environment. The beauty of this tool lies in the fact that it can benefit any environment. Reason for such flexibility hidden in the fact that it is not a physical tool, but a philosophy to live the life.

Although it’s a Japanese concept, but as such Japanese people don’t implement 5S per se. It embedded in their life style and since childhood, such concept play an integral part in their life.

So coming back to our subject matter, lets discuss feasibility of 5S in office environment. As we know following are key steps of 5S:

Sort – Set in order – Shine – Standardize è Sustain

A office mainly consists of typically following items, files, memos, books, journals, pile up of stationary, printing g materials, some equipment’s like printers/photocopiers and so on. In addition, there are storage cabinets, almirah.

It is not to exaggerate but typical scenes are prevalent:

So we need to ask following questions (1S-Sort):

• Is this Item needed at all?
• If this is needed, then in what quantity?
• If this is needed, is it needed now?
• If this is needed, is it needed here?

As you see these question unambiguously apply to office environment. Once unnecessary items are out of place, one can start placing things in order (2S-set in order). Marking tapes, identification stickers, paints are used to properly demarcate placement of each and every item.

Then dedicated drives for 3S-Shine can be run. However, I mention here all 3S in sequence but it is not necessary or hard & fast to follow the sequence. In fact, once employees start following the drive, they would apply multiple S concept in parallel and that is perfectly natural, as expected and most efficient.

Once couple of round of 1S-2S-3S are made, in parallel rules/guidelines can be documented for that particular office and employees being taught to follow new way of doing the things. Such documentation can be controlled in nature. This is the standardization of the improvement activities carried (4S-Standardization).

Once things appears to be in control, a mechanism of 5S audits can be kept in place so as to keep evaluating the gaps. This is to sustain the efforts the made (5S-Sustain)

So as you see, all 5S steps easily fits in for office environment. There are no words I used which look like alien for such environment.

So look forward that you decide to make one drive of 5S in your office. In case you wish any guidance in first such implementation, author can be reached at the contact information provided.

Author : M.K. Jain