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Step 1: Sort
The first step in 5S is Sort, or “Seiri”, which translates to “tidiness”. The goal is to identify every tool, piece of furniture, material and piece of equipment in a work area and decide which items stay and which go.
Clearing the work area
Questions to ask while sorting:[1]
- ?What is the purpose of this item?
- ?When was it last used?
- ?How often is it used?
- ?Who uses it?
- ?Does it really need to be here?
Every area has its own setup, so the best people to answer these questions are the people who work there. Once the necessary and useful items are identified, everything else should be removed, relocated, thrown away or recycled.
Unknown items and red tags
At our shop
Sort was the first step of our 5S journey. Before it, there was an organized chaos where only a handful of staff knew where anything was. That gatekeeping cost time and productivity, and at times created safety issues. Looking back, 5S was overlooked for so long because production kept up with demand, so there was no clear reason to change. In 2018, when some production staff unexpectedly moved on, new staff faced a steep learning curve full of unnecessary quirks. That was the signal we needed.
Before sorting, rolls of textiles and bins of hardware were piled up haphazardly, sometimes with the same parts in different bins across the floor. We started with the production floor and sorted items by usefulness. The amount of useless and red-tagged items was a sobering moment that proved the case for 5S. Those items have since been relocated, thrown away, sold, recycled or given away.
It took precious production time, but in hindsight it was time well spent: there is more space on the floor, items are sorted into designated areas, and the production staff are happy with how consistent and clean the space is.
What started on the production floor soon spread. Once the value was clear, admin, sales and the front desk followed suit.