Diary of a loosing mind

Everyone in the workplace should treat it as if it would be in their own home. Periodic facility management involvement is required to check that the first four S’s are implemented perfectly. Employees must make it a part of their daily work and not an action forced upon them. Dedication, commitment, devotion and sincerity are needed in implementation of 5S on daily basis. Senior management should initiate a celebration for the total 5S implementation, and be an active part in the total process in initiating and carrying forward the program. Senior management should do a periodic review of the status of 5S. Inspections of first three S’s should be done and the results displayed on 5S board regularly. Single point lessons should be used to communicate the standards for how 5S work should be done. Root cause problem-solving process should be in place where root causes are eliminated and improvement actions including prevention. Owners conduct 5S Kaizen activities and documen...

Take “before” photographs. Check that the first three S’s are implemented properly. All team activity documents/check lists should be publicly displayed on a 5S board. Establish the routines and standard practices for regularly and systematically repeating the first three S’s. Create procedures and forms for regularly evaluating the status of the first three S’s. Standardize red tag procedures and holding area rules . Standardize procedures for creating shadow boards, position lines, and labeling of all items . Standardize cleaning schedules using the “5S Owner Check Sheets” . Standardize “single-point lessons” for documenting and communicating 5S procedures and improvements in workplace and equipment. Create a maintenance system for housekeeping. Make a schedule for cleaning of the workplace. A common approach is to ask a cross-functional team to do it. Inter-departmental competition is an effective means of sustaining and enhancing interest in 5S. Assign responsibility ...

Take “before” photographs. Adopt cleaning as a daily activity and as a part of the inspection. Clean the workplace before starting the job and before closing the job. Put aside 10 or 15 minutes for the same activity per day. Cleaning indirectly helps to check or inspect each and every part and place. Hence, it should be a habit. Find ways to prevent dirt and contamination. Clean both inside and outside on daily basis. Identify and tag every item that causes contamination. Use 5Whys or cause-and-effect methods to find the root causes of such contamination and take appropriate corrective and preventive action. Keep a log of all places/areas to be improved. These are the columns that have to be logged in the Cleaning Improvement Log: WHERE is the problem located? WHAT exactly is the problem? WHO is responsible for taking action? WHEN will the solution be implemented? HOW is the solution going to be implemented? 5S “owner” check-sheets should be maintained on daily bas...

Make sure that all unnecessary items are eliminated from the workplace. Taking into account of the workflow, decide which things to put where. Take “before” photographs wherever necessary. Also, decide with colleagues about which things to put where from the point of view of efficient operations. This should be done as per the frequency of use of items. More frequently used items should be kept near the workplace. Workers should answer these questions:  What do I need to do my job? Where should I locate this item? How many of this item do I really need? Make a plan based on the principles and locate things accordingly. Use 5Whys to decide where each item belongs. Locate needed items so they can be retrieved in 30 to 60 seconds with minimum steps. Make sure to inform everybody at the workplace about the positioning of the items. Make a clear list of items with their locations and put it on lockers or cabinets. Label each locker/drawer/cupboard to show what is kep...

Sort , get rid of everything that doesn't belong in the working space. Including dirt. Red Tag everything that you feel doesn't belong. Put it in the Red Tag area until you have decided what to do with it. Keep a Red Tag log of anything that doesn't belong. That is easy said in a couple of summarising sentences, now how is it done practically? The best way to kick-off a 5S initiative is to collect the team in a meeting, challenge the present situation, get a consensus and an urgency from the team that we all could benefit from improving the present situation. When we have that, it's time to go through the theory behind the 5S and start to give out some roles and responsibilities to the team members. Look around the workplace along with colleagues to discover and identify items which are not needed and not necessary to complete work. Develop criteria for disposal for not-needed items. Take “before” photographs wherever it is required. An effective metho...

Before implementing a change it is very important to have a proper plan, otherwise there is a very big risk to get a false start and you need to restart, which will cause higher risk of more resistance and unnecessary costs and loss of time. There are two types of change management plans. One addresses the impact of change to an organization, easing the transition. The other tracks changes to a single project, creating a clear record of product tweaks or alterations to the project scope. Both of these plans aim to communicate what needs to be done clearly and accurately. Method 1 Writing a Plan to Manage Organizational Change Demonstrate reasons for the change. List factors that led to the decision to change, such as performance gaps, new technology, or a shift in the organization's mission. One approach is to describe the current situation of the organization, and the future situation this plan intends to create. Define the type and scope of cha...

Managing Change Using Motivation, Rewards and Incentives Winston Churchill once said, "There is nothing wrong with change if it is in the right direction." The author and former prime minister likely weren't speaking specifically of the business environment, but he could have been. Change in modern business is as inevitable as the tides, and reinforcing behavioural change is an ongoing activity in an employee's performance management process. If managers are to promote and sustain positive behavioural change, alongside goal setting and various feedback and coaching mechanisms, rewards and incentives can be handy tools. "Most managers and people working in organisations would probably say they're always in a state of change," said Tom McMullen, North American reward practice leader, Hay Group. "If you want to get results you need to have the behaviours to get results, and rewards and incentives are reinforcers of behaviours. I don't thi...

Resource constraint is ever-present in our age of leanness. Poor change management can trigger breaking points, the impact of which is frustration but may also lead to systemic failure. Good resource management is the efficient and effective deployment of an organization’s resources when they are needed and may include: financial resources inventory human skills production resources technology Change agents will do well to remember that all parts of an aligned organisation are components operating toward the end product (whatever that may be). By handicapping one, all suffer directly or indirectly. You have vision, skills, incentives and an action plan, but you lack the financial, material or human resources to make it happen.  You would change the world if not for cash flow issues, tight labour markets, or supply chain issues. Solution: Get your resource management right.  Attract and retain the right staff, get your accounts receivable in orde...

To build sustainable change capabilities in an organisation you need to do more than simply train people. If the people don't have the capabilities for change, they will experience anxiety every occasion it's time for a change. As most of you know traditional training can lead to very poor learner retention rates and even more damagingly to very low application rates. So, the key challenge is to move change management from being training led to being a consistently used business application. This does not devalue training, which remains a crucial activity. And, I certainly don’t want to encourage any more negative thoughts about training. There are already enough decision-makers in organisations who think training is a cost and frankly not necessary if you have ‘good’ people.  But I do think we have to continually develop the notion that learning is more than just training. And, that learning is vital if you want a successful application in the business. Over the last 19 year...

Before starting any new initiative or change anything it is very important to have a clear vision of the new and improved state of operandi. If you don't have any Vision there will be a Confusion in the team, not understanding why we have to change anything. What is a Vision? A Vision outlines the Ambition, what the team wants to be, or how it wants the world in which it operates to be ( an "idealized" view of the world). It is a long-term view and concentrates on the future. It can be emotive and as a source of inspiration. How to develop a good vision Getting Started Here’s a quick reminder of what we’re trying to achieve with our Vision Statement (not everything will apply to every team, but you’ll get the gist…) Creating the pinnacle of the funnel, which every significant action we do going forward will ultimately be contributing towards. A memorable and inspirational summary that describes our reason for existence as a team – one that will hel...