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Writer's pictureRichard Kunst

5S for SUCCESS just like you should dress for SUCCESS

Many of us know the power of Visual Management. It provides individuals and organizations the ability to Provide instant feed-back to employees about performance which will improve your business performance. This quick feed-back then allows you to;


To constantly optimize your workflow

Quickly expose your hidden problems and waste

Prompt the need to develop Standard Work

Allow individuals to quickly see the abnormal from the normal.

Prompt a culture of continuous Improvement


But is much more than that as I learned from Mariela many years ago ... It is about your company image and the image you want your organization to become. I am a big fan of stand-up meetings in front of white boards communicating critical data with my employees and here is where I learned my lesson ....


In a mad scramble to quickly get my employees engaged I ventured to our local office supply store and picked up a bunch of white boards and then to our local Home Depot for a couple of rolls of electrical tape. With the speed of a jack rabbit I assembled my Report-Out Boards in the board room and then quickly installed them on our shop floor in strategic locations.


To boast of my incredible speed in the deployment of a Lean Methodology I could not wait until I got home to share the progress with the Resident Love Goddess (also an avid Lean Practitioner) so I called her instead and boasted of my progress and that she should stop by the plant on her way home to see my first hand my amazing skills of creating Report-Out Boards ... and then I waited until she arrived ... Upon the first viewing of one of the boards she quickly reminded me of the following;



“Temporary Fixes quickly become Permanent Temporary Fixes .... Plus is this the

Image of the company that you wish to portray?”


Her comments really made me pause to think. As always she really

make sense. Of course I had the vision of evolving this facility into

A sparkling world-class facility with gleaming floors, white walls and

Ceilings where all of our employees would be proud to come to work.


When I looked at what I had created in haste in order to get the

Process rolling certainly did not convey my vision of what a world-

Class uncluttered Visual Managed Plant should look like.


I already knew the power that;


Image Creates Attitude

Attitude Creates Performance

Performance defines Quality, Pride and Accomplishment


So I went from this ....



To this >>



The enhanced second board looks very professional and already begins to incorporate additional professional attributes like the color coding of our key pillars which will be further enhanced during the 5S deployment. Also not the no tape rule of posting documents which are now inserted in very professional document holders. The second key lesson ... Is never go cheap on your white boards buy a high quality magnetic white board and the largest you can get no matter how few documents you think you will be posting ... As the information becomes available folks will constantly want more.


I know that many organizations believe that employee engagement will increase if they allow them to create and implement Visual Standards. However it is very important that you define exactly what the image of your organization has to look like.


Your facility is always going to be your strongest selling point whether it is to customers or potential employees looking to join your team. When you set your standards high the rest of your performance criteria come along for free.


People really do appreciate a professional environment and in certain instances expect it ... Imagine going into an operating theatre for open heart surgery and the operating room has equipment bound together with duct tape and miscellaneous notes taped to the wall and the staff dressed in t-shirts and shorts ... How comfortable would you feel?


So as you deploy your Visual Management Methodologies always remember ;


You hired Professionals

You Expect Professional Performance from your Professionals

You expect your Professionals to look Professional


And in return ...


You need to provide them with a Professional looking Environment.


We have just finished the redesign of our products to accomodate a flat package design for easier shipping globally but like our Report-Out boards they complete with of course a premium white board (porcelain coated), white board markers and erasers, graphic markers, outstanding magnetic document holders and to help get you started access to our proprietary workbook of templates for H&S, Quality, Productivity and tracking Continuous Improvement.

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