SAFETY & 5S Work Hand In Hand

Once you have an effective 5S program in place, where do you go from there? All too often organizations stop with implementation of 5S. We have found that you need to go beyond basic or corrective 5S which is a “fix it” mind-set, to a “solve and prevent it” mind-set. In a 6th S – Safety program, you dig into the causes of accidents, determine the conditions that are at the root of those causes, and determine the best practices to prevent those conditions from reoccurring.

The 6th S – Safety program. is typically accomplished in five different steps.

1. Plan and prepare
2. Form a core team
3. Perform basic 5S
4. Visualize Safety
5. Identify and implement best practices

The way you plan the project will either make it or break it. The most important step is to make sure you have the right people on board—the people who can give you the facts and make effective decisions.

Onceyou have completed basic 5S, it is a good idea to review what you’ve done. Basic 5S should be in place and operating for at least 6 months, Your core implementation team will often be different from the original, basic 5S team. In addition, reviewing your basic 5S results will lay the groundwork for a more focused safety program.

Another critical part of the preparation is to make sure that the purpose and targets of the project are absolutely crystal clear. The team members must understand and accept their mission to improve workplace safety conditions. In addition, you will need to document occurrences of problems and to set improvement targets. The accident pyramid will be a helpful tool for this. The pyramid shows that for every major accident, there are 29 minor accidents and 300 near misses.

Most of the information you need should be readily available because it’s required by law.

Next, you must decide whether each workplace problem belongs in a sort, set in order, shine, standardize, or sustain category.

• Sort problems occur due to items that don’t belong in the area, or due to too many of a needed item.
• Set in order problems occur because needed items are positioned poorly or put away in the wrong place. This includes physical items as well as walkways.
• Shine problems occur due to unclean, dirty, or oily equipment or surfaces—any surfaces.
• Standardization problems occur when no one knows who is responsible for something, when guidelines and rules are lacking, or when a standard is not integrated into the daily work flow and is therefore difficult to follow.
• Sustain problems occur due to poor communication or training, or when someone just refuses to follow a standard.
  
  

After you have identified the problems and sorted them into categories, you need to get down to the root causes of each problem. You can do this by using a technique called the “5 Whys.” The 5 Whys technique requires participants to ask “why” at least five times, or work through five levels of detail. Once it becomes difficult to respond to “why” the root cause has probably been identified.

Keep in mind that the focus should be on the problem and not on the people involved. Sometimes you will need to ask “why” more than five times in order to get to the real cause of your problem.

Once you get to the root cause of a problem, you need to devise methods for preventing reoccurrence. A system of best practices, shared across the organization is the most effective tool to accomplish this. Best practices are typically effective and proven methods. They have already shown that they will improve safety in the workplace.

A combination of recent OSHA guidelines and tested 6th S – Safety program techniques will give you a strong body of best practices to choose from. To begin with, make sure you are in compliance with current OSHA guidelines. You may find instances where you are not—correct them immediately.

Next, continue to work toward total control of safety conditions by using best practices. Remember, the workplace is a dynamic, ever-changing environment. Your problems are always changing.

The following will help to sustain the gains from the 6th S – Safety program:

• Development of new awareness and skills.
• Gaining support from management.
• Providing ongoing, companywide communication.
• Making 6th S – Safety program standards part of daily work.
• Encouraging total employee involvement.
• Use of effective visual controls.
  
  

When people control and manage the work area, it becomes essential that everyone is able to tell the difference between what is correct and what is incorrect at a glance. Visual techniques from your basic 5S program such as lines, labels, signboards, color coding, and lights will make it possible to accomplish this and immediately correct any variance.

Adding the 6th S to your basic 5S program will produce results quickly and will improve the safety awareness of your entire organization.