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Understanding the 6S: 5S + Safety

Duration : 60 Minutes

This course, has been approved for 1 HR (General) recertification credit hours toward aPHR™, PHR®, PHRca®, SPHR®, GPHR®, PHRi™ and SPHRi™ recertification through HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®).


William A. Levinson,

William Levinson is the principal of Levinson Productivity Systems, P.C. He is an ASQ Fellow, Certified Quality Engineer, Quality Auditor, Quality Manager, Reliability Engineer, and Six Sigma Black Belt. He holds degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering from Penn State and Cornell Universitie Read more


5S is an approach to workplace organization, some of whose elements originated at the Ford Motor Company 100 or more years ago and delivered clearly identifiable bottom line benefits. It is synergistic with occupational health and safety (OH&S) which leads to the addition of a sixth S for safety.

Course Objectives:

• Friction (the term used by General Carl von Clausewitz) is the universal enemy of organizational performance. Henry Ford, Taiichi Ohno (Toyota production system), Tom Peters, and others later applied the same principle to industry with proven results.

• 5S helps eliminate friction by

(1) clearing up, (2) arranging, (3) neatness, (4) discipline, and (5) ongoing improvement.

• 5S also supports safety, the sixth S, by removing accident root causes, and is synergistic with additional activities that promote safety.

Why Should You Attend:

General Carl von Clausewitz's On War (1831) defined friction as "…the force that makes the apparently easy so difficult." He added that "countless minor incidents… combine to lower the general level of performance, so that one always falls short of the intended goal." This principle carries over into industry where seemingly minor incidents such as equipment stoppages, breakdowns, waste motion, searching for parts and tools, and so on, combine to degrade the organization's performance substantially or even fatally. J.F. Halpin's Zero Defects (1966) adds, "They turned out to be the little things that get under a worker's skin but are never quite important enough to make him come to management for a change." 5S helps eliminate these seemingly "little things" to improve organizational performance enormously. A clearly identifiable precursor to 5S proved its effectiveness at the Ford Motor Company roughly 100 years ago.

Course Outline:

1. Rudyard Kipling presented the basic concept behind 5S in The 'Eathen; "Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' so!" Armies have known for millennia that it is vital to maintain equipment so it will function properly when it is needed. 5S carries the same principle over into the workplace.

2. Clausewitz defined friction in a military context in 1831. Henry Ford applied the concept to industry (Moving Forward, 1930) as did Taiichi Ohno (Toyota Production System, 1988), Tom Peters (Thriving on Chaos, 1987) and J.F. Halpin (Zero Defects, 1966).

3. Henry Ford recognized clearly the importance of workplace cleanliness and organization, to the extent that about 5% of his workforce was dedicated to this function and was paid as highly as the machine operators. Other elements of 5S (such as Arranging, "a place for everything, and everything in its place") were around more than 100 years ago.

4. 5S = the Japanese words for:
        • Clearing Up: "When in doubt, throw it out (or store it offline)." Remove all unessential items from the workplace.

        • Arranging: "A place for everything, and everything in its place." Shadow boards are but one example of this technique, which makes it easy to find tools when they are needed. Arranging extends to placement of tools and materials within easy reach, which improves motion efficiency enormously (180% or more in some cases).

        • Neatness: a clean workplace gives abnormalities nowhere to hide (and makes lost items easy to find).

        • Discipline makes Clearing Up, Arranging, and Neatness routine, and adds preventive maintenance. Frederick Winslow Taylor reduced the maintenance staff at Midvale Steel by two-thirds with a good PM program, which presumably allowed reassignment of the workers to directly productive work.

        • Ongoing improvement supports continual improvement through the other four activities.

5. Safety. Henry Ford ran one of the safest workplaces in the country, and he identified twelve common accident root causes that are as valid today as they were 100 years ago.

        • Ford's "can't rather than don't" safety principle, which uses engineering rather than administrative controls to make accidents impossible, eliminates five of these root causes and is also the foundation of lockout-tagout (which Ford used).

        • 5S gets rid of "insufficient room" and "unclean conditions."

        • ISO 9001:2015 clause 7.1.4, Environment for Operation of Processes gets rid of two more.

        • ISO 9001:2015 clause 7.1.3, Infrastructure (includes buildings and equipment) gets rid of two more, to leave only one; unsuitable clothing.

        • The hiyari hatto ("experience of almost accident situation") is a worker-initiated near miss report that drives removal of potential safety hazards before they can cause trouble. This, along with safety audits and workplace safety committees, promotes safety and supports the ISO 45001 standard for OH&S management systems.

What You Get:

• Training Materials including a copy of the slides and accompanying notes (pdf file)
• Live Q&A Session with our Expert
• Participation Certificate
• Access to Signup Community (Optional)
• Reward Points

Who Will Benefit:

All people with responsibility for occupational health and safety; also quality and manufacturing professionals

• Safety Managers
• Risk Managers
• Operation Managers
• Department Heads
• OHS/EHS professionals
• HR Managers/Directors/Staff
• Team Leads/Supervisors
• Small Business Owners
• EHS staff
• Occupational Health staff

Please reach us at 1-888-844-8963 for any further assistance or if you wish to register

100% MONEY BACK GUARANTEED

Refund / Cancellation policy

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Subject : Understanding the 6S: 5S + Safety


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