5S-CANDO

1. Seiri (clearing up)
• Your wastebasket is your friend.
• Disney theme parks have plenty of waste receptacles.
• At Ford's River Rouge plant, a waste container was within six steps of any position (Norwood, 1931).
• E-bay also is your friend
• Serviceable but unwanted equipment (even forklifts and machine tools) can be auctioned off.
• Three-tier classification
• Frequently-used items at workstation
• Regular use: near workstation
• Rare use: keep outside the work area
2. Seitori (arranging)
• Every tool should have a place.
• Socket wrench boxes have specific niches for each socket
• Draw outlines on the wall for each tool
3. Seiso (neatness)
• Keeping everything clean makes it easier to locate leaks and dropped parts. It also keeps dirt out of the equipment and the product.
• Cleaning was continuous at Ford's River Rouge plant.
• This was where the long-handled window cleaning sponge, which has a channel through its handle, was invented.
• Air suction systems provided "scores upon scores of invisible brooms that not only keep air and lungs clean, but greatly reduce the task delegated to [brooms] of corn and fibre" (Norwood, 1931. Ford: Men and Methods).
4. Shitsuke (discipline)
• Per Kipling, "Mind you keep your rifle and yourself just so."
• Preventive maintenance as well as cleaning must be routine. Build them into the work instructions.
• Maintenance logs show that cleaning and preventive maintenance were performed to schedule.
• ISO 9000 prescribes a strict interaction between work instructions (procedures or 3rd tier documents) and logs (quality records)
• Frederick Winslow Taylor's Shop Management (1911) called specifically for scheduled preventive maintenance.
5. Seiketsu (ongoing improvement)
• Ongoing improvement is, as we have seen, driven by standardization and best practice deployment.
• Do not let friction or waste remain part of any job by "working around" the problem.

Seitori (arranging)

Source: The System Company. 1911. How Scientific Management is Applied. London: A. W. Shaw Company, Ltd.

Plate VII says, "A section of the reverse tool room in a plant under scientific management. At the right, notice that the mnemonic symbol for each tool is on a little card above it." The benefits of "seitori" were well known to American manufacturers:

In the average shop, these bolts [for clamping work to machines] lie around on the floor: rarely is there a full assortment accessible. Needing four-inch [102mm] bolts, say, the mechanic looks around for them, fails to find a full set, and concludes to use six-inch [152 mm] bolts. Blocking up is necessary and he probably has to screw the nut down an extra inch. Because of the rough care the bolts get, the thread may be damaged, and he has trouble in getting the nut down. In many cases, as motion studies and observations have shown, he consumes from ten to twenty times as many minutes as the clamping ought to take.

Now, each instructions card specifies, in hundredths of an hour, the time allowed for setting the work in the machine. Such specification would be useless, of course, unless the proper blocks and bolts were provided for the workman's use. So the planning department sees that a full supply of blocks and bolts of varying lengths are kept in the tool racks. With each job, the mechanic receives the particular size of bolt best suited to the task, just as though these were standard machine tools instead of accessories usually neglected. Furthermore, before they are restored to the rack after use, every thread and nut is inspected to make sure they are still in perfect condition. Try any bolt in the tool room and the nut turns easily under your fingers.

Except by comparison of the time consumed in certain operations before and after the reorganization, no conception can be gained of the unbelievable wastes attending some of the less common processes. …Now every part has its symbol and its place in the stores room; every operation in assembling has been standardized (The System Company. 1911. How Scientific Management is Applied. London: A. W. Shaw Company, Ltd.).

Seiso (neatness) at the Ford Motor Company and its subsidiaries

The first job was to clean up— that is always the first thing to do in order to find out what you are about. … There is a tradition that all kinds of mining have to be dirty. We cannot afford to have dirt around— it is too expensive.
This [mining] camp looks like a suburban colony— everything is painted and kept painted a light color, so the least bit of dirt will show. We do not paint to cover up dirt— we paint white or light gray in order that cleanliness may be the order of things and not the exception (Henry Ford, 1926, Today and Tomorrow, 48).

Put all machinery in the best possible condition, keep it that way, and insist on absolute cleanliness everywhere in order that a man may learn to respect his tools, his surroundings, and himself.
...Give a man a good tool— a fancy polished tool— and he will learn to take care of it. Good work is difficult excepting with good tools used in clean surroundings. (Today and Tomorrow re: the Detroit, Toledo, & Ironton Railroad)

Shitsuke (discipline)

 "…machines do not often break down, for there is continuous cleaning and repair work on every bit of machinery in the place."

The gangs of mills are on individual arbors, so as to be removed from the machine and replaced as unit assemblies. Five tool-grinders are constantly employed in keeping up these gang-mill assemblies, several complete sets of which are used, so there is no delay in changing.
The regular practice is to change these gang-mill assemblies once in four hours, removing them from the milling machine before the work shows any sign of not being within gauge limits (Arnold, Horace Lucien, and Faurote, Fay Leone. 1915. Ford Methods and the Ford Shops. New York: The Engineering Magazine. Reprinted 1998, North Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, Inc.)

Notices "…come out at proper intervals throughout the year for inspection of each element of the system and the inspection and overhauling of all standards as well as the examination and repairs at stated intervals of parts of machines, boilers, engines, belts, etc., likely to wear out or give trouble, thus preventing breakdowns and delays" (Taylor, Frederick Winslow. 1911. Shop Management. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers)

The machines of the country are still driven by belting. The motor drive, while it is coming, is still in the future. There is not one establishment in one hundred that does not leave the care and tightening of the belts to the judgment of the individual who runs the machine, although it is well known to all who have given any study to the subject that the most skilled machinist cannot properly tighten a belt without the use of belt clamps fitted with spring balances to properly register the tension. And the writer showed …that belts properly cared for according to a standard method by a trained laborer would average twice the pulling power and only a fraction of the interruptions to manufacture [downtime] of those tightened according to the usual methods. The loss now going on throughout the country from failure to adopt and maintain standards for all small details is simply enormous (Taylor, Frederick Winslow. 1911. Shop Management. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers).

• Work instructions should specify scheduled preventive maintenance. ("Say what you do.")
• Maintenance logs (quality records) must show that it has been done according to the schedule. ("Do what you say.")