5S - KAIZEN Consulting Service

Origins from Japan, 5S-Kaizen has been implemented and applied in many countries as well as Vietnam with the philosophy:  "Good workplace management will bring higher productivity". 5S is formed by S alphabet words in Japanese and are translated into English and Vietnamese as follows:

Japanese	Seiri	Seiton	Seiso	Sheiketsu	Shitsuke
English	Sort	Straighten	Shine	Standardize	Sustain
Vietnamese	Sàng lọc	Sắp xếp	Sạch Sẽ	Săn sóc	Sẵn sàng

       
5S is an activity for everyone in the company. As a fundamental tool, it is interpreted as follows:
1. Sort - S1 (Seiri):
Everything (supplies, equipments, materials, broken furnitures ...) which is not/has not been relevant or necessary to operation in a certain area will have to be separated from what is needed, then have to be removed or taken out of the workplace. Only essential things remain in workplace. S1 is normally conducted under a regular frequency.
2. Straighten - S2 (Seiton):
Straighten is the arrangement of instruments for work, semi-finished products, raw materials, goods ... at the appropriate location so it is easy to see, take and return. General principles of S2 is that any essential instrument needs to be placed in a particular position with clear sign to indicate easily. S2 should be complied fully.
3. Shine - S3 (Seiso):
Shine is defined as cleaning at workplace or cleaning work tools and the surrounding areas, etc. S3 also should be carried out periodically. 
4. Standardize - S4 (Seiketsu):
Standardize is defined as maintaining and standardizing the previous 3S in a systematic way. To ensure that 3S is maintained, standard rules indicate the scope of 3S responsibility for each person can be established as well as manner and frequency of 3S should be deployed at each location. S4 is a process in which the compliance consciousness of staffs in an organization should be learnt and developed
5. Sustain - S5 (Shitsuke):
Sustain is expressed in the self-consciousness of the staffs for 5S activities. The organization members are well aware of the importance of 5S voluntarily, proactively and combined 5S standards well with working to gain performance efficiency and raise the company's overall productivity. 
5S is a fundamental tool for creating an organized work environment and reducing/eliminating waste in the activities. This is a desirable approach for all organizations and enterprises, hence, 5S can be applied to all organizations/enterprises in industrial, agricultural or services industry. 5S is a basis for carrying out Kaizen in enterprises.


       KAIZEN is a philosophical and systematic approach which was developed in Japan after the World War II. In Japanese, Kaizen is grafted from "Kai" - "change" or " doing things right" and "zen" - "better" or “continuous improvement "
Currently, many enterprises have still not understood this term. Speaking of improvements, they usually think about the changes in technology, machinery and equiments to improve production capacity, which might waste a lot of time and money while the organization’s production scale and financial resource are limited. Therefore, the school of thought about continuously improving is often denied by organizations/enterprises. As a result, they continue to accept high production costs and poor competitiveness.

In fact, IMPROVEMENT simply means making things better than the present and mainly based on the available resources. IMPROVEMENT is usually separated into two segments: Improvement in Management System (IM) and Improvement in Technological Equipment (IE).
IM is the changes in operation at all stages in all departments, from Planning => Production => Purchase => Quality control => Logistics => Sales => Administration-Human Resources, etc. to remove the waste, reduce operation time and improve quality ...
IE is a focus on improving the capacity of the machinery, including new machinery system equipment, which requires the enterprises to calculate carefully as well as prepare a strong financial resources.
In the spirit of Kaizen-continuous improvement, unless the enterprise has fully completed the steps of IM, they shall not carry out IE.

Why must we apply Kaizen?
Habits of workers in Vietnam in particular and in the developing countries in general are "keeping both the necessary and unnecessary everything". This leads to an untidy, unclean and time consuming working manner. Therefore, with the current situation, in order to survive, enterprises must implement 5S which satisfies the motto "Well organized company will lead to good and stable manufacturer ". 
From the office, the warehouse to the construction site or industrial/agricultural workshops and services, workplaces must be arranged, classified, cleaned. 5S prevents the degrade of workshops, provides ventilation for the workplaces, reduces the time for finding materials and records, as well as avoiding confusion. The workers would feel comfortable, work with high productivity and avoid errors. The production facilities would operate in a safe environment under quality standards.
Without  5S activities, management and improvement (Kaizen) cannot be achieved. Thus, 5S is the foundation to implement KAIZEN in the enterprises. If 5S-KAIZEN is performed well, the enterprise’s development will reach a huge success.

BENEFITS OF 5S-KAIZEN APPLICATION
- Help to create a friendly and comfortable working environment for all positions;
- Help minimize/eliminate the waste in production processes such as shortening the transit time, eliminating workers subjective errors, etc.
- Help reduce the operational cost thus enhance the competitive advantage;
- With an openned and organized working environment, work safety is promoted and risk is prevented actively;
- Working for the group’s benefit is clearly awared and promoted; the solidarity, cohesion between leaders and staffs, and among the staffs, is strengthened;
- Encourage innovation and improvement among the employees;
- Build, consolidate and enhance the professional image of the company.

How to implement 5S-KAIZEN in organizations?
Understanding the concern and requirement of organizations, trained experts in various fields of KIS Science & Technology Consultant Co. Ltd., along with 30 experts (who is working at Agencies, Ministries and other relevant sectors) with high qualifications and academic achievements have designed and successfully implemented many programs to train and consult "Perform 5S – KAIZEN” in accordance with the operation characteristics of the customer.
To be trained, supported, consulted 5S – KAIZE, please contact us via email: vphn@kis.vn or via hotline: 0942.99.66.88 for details.