What about Quality?
After the Six Sigma Stupidity fiasco, many folk are turning to 5S for salvation. One post on LinkedIn had dozens of folk raving about how beautifully a broom closet had been rearranged.
Why do people continue to turn their backs on the great men of QUALITY: Professor Deming, Professor Lewis, Professor Ishikawa, Dr Shewhart and Dr Wheeler, for the next silly fad being hawked by hacks?
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain. There's nothing wrong with a tidy workplace. However, it is not going to doing anything significant for your company.
Focus on Quality and costs will reduce. Focus on cost cutting and disaster will ensue.
Successful companies like Toyota, use Quality Circles and Professor Deming's methods. Toyota has had over 40,000,000 employee quality improvements. Their teams have evolved many improvement tools and techniques, that are envied and taken out of context in the West.
by Dr Tony Burns BE (Hon 1) PhD (Chem Eng)