After the need last week for an unforeseen pause, I return to our unfolding puzzle, raised at the end of my article, Lean Alone Is Not Enough (Issue 21/May 27, 2015).  

As you remember from that recent article, consequences got triggered, however inadvertently, when Jim Womack and Dan Jones urged 5S as the indispensable first step on the journey to lean. Those consequences also set the visual workplace back for decades. Let me un-nest my perspective on this, which I fully realize may not be your own.

My own encounter with 5S began one Thursday morning in 1983 when Cheryl Berling came rushing down the hallway in search of me (an ex-Latin teacher) and Connie Dyer (an ex-attorney). Cheryl was head of books at Productivity Inc., Norman Bodek's company training and publishing company-soon to be the premier global source for translated books on Japan's so-called "business miracle"-with Toyota as the prime exemplar. She was on the phone with our translator and needed five English words that began with S to map to the five Japanese terms: seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke. Japan's 5S was a simple phase 1 step for clearing the debris out of the value stream, putting order and orderliness in place (which included some labels and lines)--and making sure the level achieved was the level maintained. In Japan it was also used as an opportunity to involve line employees in the process of thinking.    

In impact, Japan's 5S provided an environmental foundation that smoothed the way to a second phase: upgrading the quality and function of the company's production system. This required intense analytical work, involving engineering, scheduling/planning, and sales. Capability was built; bottlenecks reduced; material consumption levels were calculated and operations were relocated based on the value that got added there; standard work (usually in three cuts) was applied. The result was a vast reduction in flow time and distance; pull was implemented along a critical path...the value stream. 5S, in its original form, was the unassuming enabler of these lofty business goals. It was not-nor was it touted as-the singular opportunity for employee engagement but merely one of them. Mother Toyota, for example, had myriad other named and powerful ways to accomplish that, including kata.