Organized for Productivity
Workplace organization is the foundation stone for improvement and the first pillar in a Kaizen” change. It is also the pillar that supports and strengthens all that will follow. The premise is both simple and logical: You cannot be productive in an unproductive environment. As Henry Ford once wrote, “Good work requires good tools in a good organized environment.”
Many companies tend to focus more on the efficiency of their workers than on their workers productivity. There is a distinct difference. Efficiency focuses on how quickly we perform a task - how many parts per hour or day is being produced. Productivity on the other hand focuses on meeting customer requirements. As an example, the introduction of piecework in many factories aims to improve the efficiency of each worker through the provision of monetary rewards. Each unit of production is carefully and accurately timed and costed so as to provide an achievable level of income for the operative and a profit for the company. In my experience however, the piecework system does not take into account an individuals productivity. In fact it forces the operative to concentrate purely on the quantity he or she is producing, with little thought given to the quality of work. Quality is seen as a hindrance to earning a decent pay.
Worker A versus Worker B
To illustrate this important point, imagine there are two workers, each performing the same task. Worker A produces fifty units per hour whilst worker B can only manage forty-five. Who is of most value to the company? Usually it would be worker A who receives the most praise and admiration from management as he or she appears to be the hardest and most efficient of the two. However, if only forty units of worker A’s hourly output met the required quality standard, whilst all of worker B’s passed inspection, who then is offering greater value through their labour?
Clearly, when viewed from a productivity viewpoint, worker A is, in effect, costing the company with every hour he or she works through the production of rejects (five per hour). Worker B, though only managing to produce forty-five units per hour, is clearly the most productive, producing no rejects, and therefore is of more value. Such is the perverse view that develops when one’s focus is solely directed towards improving efficiency; praise tends to go to those costing money whilst criticism goes to those who actually make money for the company.
Workplace organisation not only helps workers to become more efficient in carrying out their tasks, but also focuses on helping workers maximise their productivity by making it difficult for mistakes to occur. By involving our teams, and through the use of visual management methods and the standardisation of regular tasks, the working environment becomes one that supports and promotes the dynamic and quality focused culture we are trying to create. Effective workplace organisation should therefore become an integral part in the transformation of a company and a mainstay in one’s day-to-day operations.
A Recognised Strategy
The influential Japanese author and consultant Massaki Imai, wrote of a factory who once lost a contract because of a lack of workplace organisation. This shows the seriousness that some businesses place on its implementation. Their reasoning was that a manager, showing such an indifference to the basic care of their physical surroundings, could not ensure that sufficient care will be taken over the manufacturing of precision engineering parts. To these businessmen the two went hand-in-hand. Achieving accuracy in one’s work is as much a state of mind as a tangible measurement, and if you are lacking in one aspect, you will no doubt be lacking in another. On seeing the physical surroundings in which their orders would be made, the businessmen had no option but to decide to award the contract to someone else. A lack of workplace organisation directly led to that company loosing work (Imai 1996).
In a similar way, Hiroyuki Hirano, another famous Japanese consultant turned author, said in his influential book Five Pillars of the Visual Workplace (1995), that it would be impossible for improvement to take place unless one first applied workplace organisation. When saying this he was referring to a system called ‘5S.’ This system ensures that our physical working environments are always kept in such away as to promote improvement activities and to aid in the efficiency and productivity of those who work there. 5S is a sequential approach to organising and cleaning the workplace and has become popular as a standalone kaizen tool in its own right. Many businesses in many countries have benefited from this methodology and research has shown how its use has significantly decreased a company’s reject rate whilst improving staff morale, health and safety, delivery times, and many other aspects of daily work, including the overall corporate image (Ho 2002).
According to Productivity Europe, “5S has also been recognized as a key strategy by many of the winners of Britain’s Best Factories Awards.”
Biography
Andrew Scotchmer is the founder of Complete Kaizen (http://www.completekaizen.co.uk), a global 5S and kaizen training/seminar company. Andrew has been referred to as a “renowned lean expert” and a “kaizen guru” and wrote the book “5S Kaizen in 90 Minutes” along with numerous articles that help businesses achieve exponential success.
Andrew speaks internationally to packed audiences and can be contacted by emailing andrew@completekaizen.co.uk
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