Kaizen Tip 105: Virtually Ship Shape
This week’s KaizenTip was written by Alastair Olby of Kaizen Training.
Have you ever found yourself working with people who need information, have access to it - yet don’t take it in? Perhaps the information is on a shared drive or intranet, or maybe it’s e-mailed. What’s certain is that it IS available, but what’s equally clear is that people haven’t taken it in.
There are many potential causes for this, and here we explore just one of them. It’s a very common one that frequently gets overlooked, and it links in with a tool known as 5S, widely used in the manufacturing sector but as yet largely overlooked in the service sector.
Part of the problem is that there’s too much information and it gets hard to see the wood for the trees. It’s not that different from looking for something in a cluttered desk drawer and not finding it, even though it is actually there. Our senses become overwhelmed with information and we stop noticing what is right in front of our nose.
Cue 5S. When done well 5S helps create and maintain excellent standards of housekeeping, making sure the clutter is cleared and that you have what you need, where you need it, when you need it. No more searching for that vital tool or document. Everything kept clean and in order. No more wasted time looking for stuff, and very importantly, much clearer lines of communication.
When it comes to computing systems it seems many organisations have yet to apply 5S to their electronic data. But if they did, they’d almost certainly realise huge improvements in areas such as system performance, time taken for users to locate information, people acting on the information communicated to them and so on.
The first step in 5S (‘Seiri’ in Japanese, often translated to ‘Sort’ or ‘Sift’ in English) is to get rid of all the things you don’t really need. No more hoarding things just in case. No more squirrel stocks. It’s a stage to be really honest with yourself: if I threw this away would I REALLY miss it? When people first do this there is typically a huge amount they can get rid of, but there may well be some items they’re not totally sure about. Will we need them in the future? Should we keep them just in case? For these situations it can be good to create a “quarantine” or holding area. Any item you’re not totally sure about throwing away can be placed in this area, with a firm date by which if it hasn’t been used it gets thrown out/sold/recycled.
This stage is quite easy for physical items, but what about electronic data? One way of tackling this is to create a folder with automatic rules. If the document hasn’t been accessed in, for example, 30 days, it automatically turns red. Once a month, you take 10 minutes or so to review any red items and archive or delete as appropriate. Simple. The important thing is to be disciplined in regularly reviewing the folder. The first time you’ll find there’s a lot in it, but after a month or two it gets much easier to maintain. Even only doing this first step of 5S, people typically find it much easier to find what they need, resulting in less time wasted and improved information flow.
So your call to action: