Progressive Lean Sort and Shine: Part 6
Today, I'm going to cover the Sort and Shine self-review.
A common approach to assessing 5S progress is the good old 5S audit. I've posted an audit form myself on this very blog. Heck, it's been one of my most popular posts. It seems a lot of folks have searched the internet for 5S audit forms and a few of them stumbled on my humble blog. I don't imagine that many are actually using the form I posted; it's not very good to tell the truth. Like most 5S audits it tries too hard to pack the whole thing into too small a poke. And it's difficult to design a "one size fits all" audit.
Aside from all that, I've just moved away from the idea that an audit, conducted by the 5S police, is the best approach. 5S becomes something else that supervisors can catch hell for rather than a true change in culture. Audits are fine...if you want to teach people how to pass audits. Something more engaging is needed if you want people to really learn the benefits of keeping their areas organized. The self-review puts the responsibility for regularly assessing the progress and status of the Progressive Lean initiative into the hands of the teams and their leaders.
Now I can imagine some will read this and misinterpret the approach, thinking that self-review is the equivalent of "do whatever the heck you like and set the standards wherever you like and it'll be OK". Team leaders and teams have to learn how to conduct a self-review and that will require some coaching. Further, they'll be required to carry out the self-audits both to "pass off' their area initially to show that they've completed the Sort and Shine schedule. Then, they'll be required to continue the self-reviews to show that they are sustaining the Sort and Shine benefits. Supervisors and lean champions will be expected to review the self-reviews and match them to what they see on their own gemba walks. This pretty much always leads to further feedback and coaching. So, if anything, self-reviews require more systemic rigor and discipline than does an occasional audit by the 5S police.
Here are the basics for carrying out self-reviews:
A common approach to assessing 5S progress is the good old 5S audit. I've posted an audit form myself on this very blog. Heck, it's been one of my most popular posts. It seems a lot of folks have searched the internet for 5S audit forms and a few of them stumbled on my humble blog. I don't imagine that many are actually using the form I posted; it's not very good to tell the truth. Like most 5S audits it tries too hard to pack the whole thing into too small a poke. And it's difficult to design a "one size fits all" audit.
Aside from all that, I've just moved away from the idea that an audit, conducted by the 5S police, is the best approach. 5S becomes something else that supervisors can catch hell for rather than a true change in culture. Audits are fine...if you want to teach people how to pass audits. Something more engaging is needed if you want people to really learn the benefits of keeping their areas organized. The self-review puts the responsibility for regularly assessing the progress and status of the Progressive Lean initiative into the hands of the teams and their leaders.
Now I can imagine some will read this and misinterpret the approach, thinking that self-review is the equivalent of "do whatever the heck you like and set the standards wherever you like and it'll be OK". Team leaders and teams have to learn how to conduct a self-review and that will require some coaching. Further, they'll be required to carry out the self-audits both to "pass off' their area initially to show that they've completed the Sort and Shine schedule. Then, they'll be required to continue the self-reviews to show that they are sustaining the Sort and Shine benefits. Supervisors and lean champions will be expected to review the self-reviews and match them to what they see on their own gemba walks. This pretty much always leads to further feedback and coaching. So, if anything, self-reviews require more systemic rigor and discipline than does an occasional audit by the 5S police.
Here are the basics for carrying out self-reviews:
- Hand out the form to team leaders. (You can use the one I've attached to this post...I hope.) Tell them that they are to conduct a self-review of the area that they've sorted and shined when they feel that the team has tackled the area effectively.
- When they have completed the self-review, have them bring it back to you. Walk through the same area with the team leader (and, ideally, the team) having them talk about each item and the score they gave themselves. (If you're experience is like mine, you'll find that they grade themselves too rigorously. They forget that the goal is sort and shine, not hospital clean...unless it's a hospital, of course.) Once they've calibrated the self-review like this with you, they don't have to do it again unless you see later evidence in your gemba walks that they are slipping.
- When they get a four on every item, they pass. Not an average of four for the entire review; four or better on each item.
- Once they pass, have them continue to do the self-reviews at least monthly.
Where's the audit form?
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Where is the audit form? I cannot seem to find it.
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It's posted now.
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