5S + S of Self Development

In our personal as well as professional life we may often experience the following stressful situation along with adrenalin rush:

1.       You are a student who has to attend a workshop or seminar in your school/college. While getting ready for the event you are unable to find your clothes and/or relevant documents or accessories in your room and you ask your mother or father for help, which leads to an exasperated comment and feedback from them for keeping your room clean and your things in place so that you can get them easily without wasting any time.

2.       You are a professional who is to take a morning flight to attend a business meeting. You get up in the morning and try to arrange your documents and clothes to get ready for the travel, but you spend a lot of your time and effort in finding them and eventually have to rush to the airport with a fear of missing the flight.

3.       You work in shift in a factory.  You and your colleague, you relieve in the scheduled shift time complain of not keeping the records, documents, equipments and even the office you both work in, in proper condition and have to search for the things when you need them. You have piles of paper records and files and both of you are procrastinating on sorting them and spring cleaning the office space you both share with each other.

4.       You are a home maker and your entire house is in a mess. You have to spend at least twenty minutes to find out the needle and thread to darn your child’s dress, who, had to reach school in ten minutes. You often forget the place you have stowed the household things, for example, you do not remember where you have kept the vessels  office you use to cook crepes; pair of scissors you use for cutting paper in the kitchen.

5.       As a stranger in a town, you find it difficult to locate the place you have to visit due to absence of proper public signage in the form of maps, street names, building names, numbers, address, etc.

6.       You work in the store of a big automobile company, but you all do not follow the method of maintaining the inventory. This results in pilferage, irregular maintenance of stocks and supply of goods along with huge wastage of in-process-goods and finished goods. What this results into is anyone’s guess.

7.       There are frequent technical snags, breakdowns and accidents in the Production, IT and Electrical Departments of an industry.

When we have experienced such situation in our life, then we are aware of the time and effort is wasted in such situation along with the physical and mental stress we have to experience. We can take care of this by adopting 5S and S of Self Development. What is 5S? The answer to this question is:

5S is the name of a workplace or residential place organization method that uses a list of five Japanese words: 

1.    seiri(Sort),

2.     seiton(Set/ Systematise), 

3.    seiso(Shine/ Sweep-Clean), 

4.    seiketsu(Standardise), and 

5.    shitsuke(Sustain/Self Discipline).

Transliterated into English, they all start with the letter "S". Please refer to the following link for more information on 5S Methodology:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology)

The following flowchart explains the method of applying 5S:

The following link explains the PDCA Approach (Plan-Do-Check-Act) of applying 5S:

http://www.isixsigma.com/tools-templates/5s/practical-approach-successful-practice-5s/

Let us revisit the situations listed above and address them using the ‘5S’ Methodology:

1.       

1. On the eve of the scheduled day of workshop or seminar, the student can:

i.                     Sort (Seiri) all the things he/she needs viz. clothes, accessories, documents, etc. needed to attend the event the following morning.

ii.                   Set/Systematise (Seiton) the sorted things in order; for example, arrange the books, documents, pen, and other accessories in the bag that one will take along to attend the event.

iii.                Shine/Sweep (Seiso) check and clean the things, such as check and clean and iron the clothes to be worn for the event.

iv.                 The student can Standardize (Seiketsu) this activity by sorting all the things in his/her room and setting them in easily accessible order in the room.

v.                    Sustain/Self Discipline (Shitsuke) henceforth the student can constantly maintain the order of the things in the room.

vi.                 S of Self Development: the student can analyse how he/she benefits by practising 5S method.

2     How will you address this situation using the 5S Method?

3.       How will you get along with your shift-in-charge colleague and adopt the 5S Method to take care of the issues you are facing in your workplace?

4.       You as a homemaker, how will you adopt the 5S Methodology for streamlining your set and work in the kitchen. Please refer to the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) Approach explained in the second web link.

5.       As a town-planner, how will you apply the PDCA Approach in designing and implementing the layout of a town so that it is easy to locate any area or place of the town?

6.       How will you address the issue of inventory management in the store of the manufacturing unit using the PDCA approach of 5S?  

7.       Using the templates provided for the PDCA Approach of 5S, how can you address the safety and operational problems faced in the Production, IT and Electrical Departments of an industry?

Salient Points:

1. Knowles Principles of Adult Learning (Andragogy) has been applied to approach the learning of the Concept of 5S Methodology for Self Development.

2. Cognitive Approach too can be used  for the Self-paced learning as well as collaborative learning where the Instructor does not explain the concept in lecture mode, but facilitates the learners to know, comprehend apply and assimilate the concept in the form of experiential learning.

3. The learner can consciously analyse the benefits of adopting 5S Method for self development both in personal and professional life.

4. Simulated games  in the form of individual and team activities can be designed based on the situations/scenarios given in this post or e based on the experiences of the learners. The objective of the simulated games will be to enable the learner to synthesise the concept learnt.

5. Industries, institutions and even households can adopt the 5S Method and encourage the learners to adopt it through positive motivators viz. rewarding "Smilies" and "Brownie Points" to those who effectively use the method in their daily activities and in their work and subsequently develop a positive attitude to life through Self Discipline as practised in 5S Method. The colleagues and peers can award smilies to each other for the benefit they get from their colleague practising the 5S Method. This can therefore be an effective way to manage performance, on the basis of the number of smiley and brownie points an employee earns.

6   The 5S Method is a prognostic approach to performance management.

 In case of Maslow's Needs Hierarchy, now it is evident, self actualisation (the sixth and top most level of the needs pyramid) is an integral part of the basic needs (the base or lowest level of the pyramid). Self actualistion as is essential as the air the individual breathes to survive. Therefore:

Thus in reality, self actualistation is synomymous to organisational development. Therefore, Maslow's inverted pyramid depicts the true individual as well is organisational need:

 Image Source:
https://nanaimothomas.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/maslows-inverted-pyramid-of-needs/
https://www.slideshare.net/truenorthadvisor/organi-cultural-deviance-blue-2013