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Operations Optimization at ICO Bath Leads to Record Sales Growth

TXM North America were tasked to help ICO Bath optimize operations through the application of Lean Thinking. At a site v…

TXM Lean Case Study – Lean Transformation for Abrasives Manufacturer

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TXM Lean Case Study – Lean Manufacturing in the Beverage Industry – Juicy Isle

The Challenge Juicy Isle employee checking the bottling line for issues. Tasmanian juice company, Juicy Isle acquired tw…

TXM Lean Case Study – Server Racks Australia (SRA)

Server Racks Australia decreased order lead times from 4-6 weeks to around 2 weeks. THE CHALLENGE Server Racks Australia…

The manufacturing business has endless challenges, especially as you expand or want to change. Luckily, lean principles and solutions are there to help you get through these challenges, realign your business, and get you back on track, performing even better. What does lean manufacturing do?

With  TXM Lean Solutions , you can streamline your business, minimise waste while maximising production, reduce lead time and inventory, standardise processes, and generally improve the work environment. For over 400 years, we’ve been successfully delivering problem and business-specific lean solutions to our customers across the United Kingdom, Australia, France, USA, China, Canada, and the whole of Europe as you can confirm from our  case studies.

Lean Manufacturing 5S Case Studies

From increasing productivity to reducing overhead, better handling of production resources, reducing lead time and inventory, our 5S lean approach offers practical and straightforward solutions for sustainable improvement through enhanced accountability. Here are some  5S case studies  about our success with several of our customers.

• Juicy Isle – Higher Productivity and Reduced Production Overheads

The Tasmanian juice company Juice Isle was expanding production through two acquisitions, creating the need to streamline the productions of all its products. Upon implementing TXM’s 5S, the customer increased productivity by 20% and variable production overheads reduced by 10%. The client was able to take more orders and increase their bottom line.

• Server Racks Australia –Improved Housekeeping, Reduced Lead Times, and Standardised Work Environment

The computer server racks based in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, was facing complexities from the expansion that negatively impacted profits. With TXM’s 5S, Server Racks was able to reduce their order lead times from 4-6 weeks to approximately two weeks through prompt daily meetings.

• A Global Leading Abrasives Manufacturer –Decreased Lead Time

Our client was looking to be the number abrasives manufacturer throughout Asia within 3 years. But there were issues with long lead time and late deliverances that would hinder this vision.

With TXM’s 5S solutions:

• The manufacturing lead time reduced from 14.6 days to 10.8 days.
• Efficiency increased by 10.7%
• Inventory reduced by RMB 1.3 million.
• On-Time Delivery (OTD) by 34.1%, and
• Defects were reduced by 41.5%.

TXM’s 5s Lean Solutions Is Your Ultimate Solution for Your Business

At   TXM Lean Solutions , we are dedicated to providing solutions to match your business needs in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, or Canada. With our 5S solutions, you can reduce lead time, improve production, standardise your work environment, reduce inventory, and boost your bottom line.

Please don’t hesitate to  contact us  today to get started.

Case Study: 5S in Practice

Updated: February 27, 2024 by Mohit Sharma

5S is a Lean tool that helps in workplace organization. The following is the list of five Japanese words and their translation in English.

( Seiri ) Sorting and prioritizing: Going through all the tools, materials, etc., in the work area and keeping only the essential items. Everything else is stored or discarded. ( Seiton ) Straighten or set in order: Focuses on efficiency, by arranging the tools, equipment, visual dashboards and parts in a manner that promotes workflow. For everything there should be place and everything should be in its place. ( Seisō ) Shining or cleanliness: Systematic cleaning, or the need to keep the workplace clean as well as neat. At the end of each shift, the work area is cleaned up and everything is restored to its place. ( Seiketsu ) Standardizing: Aligning work practices, or operating in a consistent and consistent fashion. Everyone knows exactly what his or her responsibilities are to keep above the previous three S’s. ( Shitsuke ) Sustaining the discipline: Maintaining and reviewing standards. Once the previous four S’s have been established, they become the new way to operate.

Initially, 5S had significance in the manufacturing arena, but it has expanded into all areas of industries and operations.

Consider the following example of an implementation of 5S that reduced the time to generate a report from three hours to ten minutes.

S1 – Sorting of data : A finance team previously generated a report that pulled data from 2010 through the current date. The team, however, only required the data for the last year to do their analysis. Logic used to pull information was modified and reduced report-generation time. S2 – Set in order : The team needed data in a particular order while performing analysis so the team set the columns in that particular order, saving analysis time. S3 – Shine : The entire report was cleaned. Cells and data columns that were not required were removed. This sped up the report generation time. S4 – Standardize : A prior report was run during the day; it used to take a significant amount of time of both an employee and machine. A consistent process was created around the time of report generation. Every morning before the shift starts, one person will run the report, which will take ten minutes. S5 – Sustain : All of the activities described in the previous 4 S’s were sustained for the last three months and now this process is business as usual for the team.

About the Author

Mohit Sharma

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, a case study concerning the 5s lean technique in a scientific equipment manufacturing company.

Grey Systems: Theory and Application

ISSN : 2043-9377

Article publication date: 17 April 2020

Issue publication date: 18 June 2020

This paper's purpose is to help a scientific equipment company make use of the 5S tool on the shop floor so that the organization can become progressively beneficial and increasingly productive.

Design/methodology/approach

The organization has adopted a simple approach for making a suitable team for 5S tool implementation at the workplace. After that, they have used three types of data-collection methods so that these methods could help in the correct introduction of the 5S tool in the business workplace. They have also analysed the regression analysis with the genetic algorithm for the audit scores to predict the behaviour of 5S implementation in the coming weeks.

In this case study, it has been found after the suitable analysis that the 5S tool implementation has resulted in the overall benefits of the workplace. The major benefit achieved with the 5S tool is that the searching time for the tool in the workplace has been improved significantly. Also, the safety level is increased. The 5S audit has been carried out in the workplace and the audit score has been improved from the level of 6 scores (in week 1) to 72 score (in week 24).

Practical implications

5S tool has emerged as an incredible asset and it tends to be actualized in any of the ventures whether it is of a miniature, small, medium or large scale industry. The 5S tool can be applied horizontally at a large scale and it can be applied to almost all the workstations in the workplace.

Originality/value

The presented productions and contextual investigation for the 5S tool will be helpful and useful for all the analysts, experts and all other people who are worried about this subject of the 5S tool and its implementation in the organization.

• Practical applications of grey models
• Lean manufacturing

Gupta, S. and Chandna, P. (2020), "A case study concerning the 5S lean technique in a scientific equipment manufacturing company", Grey Systems: Theory and Application , Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 339-357. https://doi.org/10.1108/GS-01-2020-0004

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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• Open access
• Published: 19 July 2016

Applicability of the 5S management method for quality improvement in health-care facilities: a review

• Shogo Kanamori 1 , 2 ,
• Akira Shibanuma 1 &
• Masamine Jimba 1  

Tropical Medicine and Health volume  44 , Article number:  21 ( 2016 ) Cite this article

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The 5S management method (where 5S stands for sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain) was originally implemented by manufacturing enterprises in Japan. It was then introduced to the manufacturing sector in the West and eventually applied to the health sector for organizing and standardizing the workplace. 5S has recently received attention as a potential solution for improving government health-care services in low- and middle-income countries. We conducted a narrative literature review to explore its applicability to health-care facilities globally, with a focus on three aspects: (a) the context of its application, (b) its impacts, and (c) its adoption as part of government initiatives.

To identify relevant research articles, we researched public health databases in English, including CINAHL, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science. We found 15 of the 114 articles obtained from the search results to be relevant for full-text analysis of the context and impacts of the 5S application. To identify additional information particularly on its adoption as part of government initiatives, we also examined other types of resources including reference books, reports, didactic materials, government documents, and websites.

The 15 empirical studies highlighted its application in primary health-care facilities and a wide range of hospital areas in Brazil, India, Jordan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, the UK, and the USA. The review also found that 5S was considered to be the starting point for health-care quality improvement. Ten studies presented its impacts on quality improvements; the changes resulting from the 5S application were classified into the three dimensions of safety, efficiency, and patient-centeredness. Furthermore, 5S was adopted as part of government quality improvement strategies in India, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania.

Conclusions

5S could be applied to health-care facilities regardless of locations. It could be not only a tool for health workers and facility managers but also a strategic option for policymakers. They could consider 5S as the starting point of a government-led quality improvement initiative for improving safety, efficiency, or patient-centeredness aspects particularly in low- and middle-income countries. However, the evidence base, particularly in resource-poor settings, must be expanded.

The 5S management method—where 5S stands for the five Japanese words Seiri , Seiton , Seiso , Seiketsu , and Shitsuke— has been used in the automotive and other industries. These five words, often translated into English as “sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain,” broadly refer to the discipline of cleanliness in any place [ 1 ]. The 5S management method (hereinafter abbreviated as “5S”) is a set of practices that aims to generate productivity improvements by creating and sustaining clean and well-organized workplaces [ 1 – 4 ]. It is often called the commonsense approach and regarded as a low-cost and technologically undemanding participatory approach that workers can implement regardless of their technical knowledge [ 5 ].

5S was originally implemented by manufacturing enterprises in Japan. During the 1980s, it was introduced to the manufacturing sector in the West as the secret behind Japanese industrial development. 5S was eventually applied to non-production settings, such as offices, as well [ 6 ]. It has also been applied to health-care facilities as a systematic way to organize and standardize the workplace [ 7 ]. In Japan, 5S has been commonly practised at hospitals [ 8 – 11 ]. It has also been recognized as a method for health-care quality improvement in several books published in the USA [ 7 , 12 – 17 ].

In the context of the health-care quality improvement, 5S has often been regarded as one of the “lean” tools [ 18 ], where lean refers to a set of approaches for continuous improvement that aim to maximize added value by removing all necessary factors that do not generate value [ 19 ]. Lean has been recognized as one of the key quality improvement approaches in health-care [ 20 ].

5S has recently received attention from health-care professionals as a potential solution to improve the service quality of resource-poor government health-care facilities in low- and middle-income countries. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has adopted 5S as part of its technical cooperation scheme to improve health-care service quality and has assisted several low- and middle-income countries [ 21 , 22 ].

We conducted this study to review the applicability of 5S in relation to the following aspects: (a) the context of application to improve the quality of health-care services; (b) the impacts of application to health-care facilities; and (c) the adoption of the method as part of government initiatives, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The paper concludes by presenting the policy implications of the 5S application.

We conducted a narrative review of the literature. Since our study was intended to provide an overview of the applicability of 5S from different aspects, rather than answer a clearly defined question, we considered the systematic review inappropriate. Moreover, a systematic review was not suitable because few studies were based on rigorous data collection methods to evaluate the applicability of 5S in health-care facilities (this was our initial assumption, which was confirmed as our literature review progressed). Nevertheless, we referred to the checklist for the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) [ 23 ] and, to the extent possible, adhered to the standard methods for the systematic review to identify the relevant literature (Fig.  1 ).

Literature selection flow diagram

To identify the relevant empirical studies on the application of 5S in health-care facilities, we investigated the academic literature. We researched public health databases in English, including CINAHL, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science, for relevant peer-reviewed research articles published between January 1980 and October 2015 using the keywords “5S,” “five-S,” “lean,” “quality,” “health,” and “hospital.” The search yielded a total of 114 records that contained 94 articles after duplicates were removed. We selected 34 articles for the full-text assessment because the remaining 60 articles were not related to the subjects of our study. We reviewed the main text of the retrieved articles and identified 12 English-language research articles that describe the empirical application of 5S in health-care facilities. We also searched Google Scholar for articles that cite any of these 12 articles (as of October 2015) and identified three additional relevant research articles. We examined the complete texts of the 15 articles to identify the context and impacts of the 5S application; however, we did not assess the validity of the research methods employed in these articles.

To identify additional information pertaining particularly to the context of the 5S application and its adoption as part of government initiatives, we examined the partial or full text of the following: (a) research articles that were among the 34 articles for the full-text assessment but not retained at the final screening stage; (b) research articles, reference books, reports, didactic materials, and government documents that were listed in the reference section of the 15 research articles reviewed in our study; and (c) documents and web-based resources identified through an online search on Google Scholar. To obtain in-depth information about government initiatives mentioned in the research articles, we searched the websites of concerned government agencies for relevant official documents including guidelines, manuals, and reports.

This study identified several key factors pertaining to the context and impacts of the 5S application. They were the implementation settings, applied tools or methods, changes resulting from the 5S application, and the objective of the intervention in the context of quality improvement (Table  1 ). Among the 15 empirical studies, the quantitatively measurable changes are presented in the nine articles [ 24 – 32 ]. Changes perceived by health workers are presented in one article, too [ 33 ].

Context of 5S application for quality improvement

Our review identified service areas and geographical locations involved in the empirical 5S application. 5S was applied to primary health-care facilities [ 28 , 33 , 34 ] and different locations or sectors of hospitals, including a pharmacy [ 24 ]; an emergency department [ 25 ]; an operating room [ 26 ]; multiple departments (central supply, histology laboratory, ICU, medical-surgical inpatient care unit, and infusion center) of several hospitals [ 27 ]; a laboratory [ 29 ]; a surgical clinic [ 31 ]; multiple locations of hospitals (or without specific information about target locations) [ 32 , 35 – 38 ]; and central warehouses [ 30 ]. Of the 15 studies, six were conducted in the USA [ 26 , 27 , 29 – 31 ], one in the UK [ 35 ], and eight in low- and middle-income countries, namely Brazil, India, Jordan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania [ 24 , 25 , 28 , 32 – 34 , 37 , 38 ].

Depending on the studies, 5S was combined with other tools and its application was meant for different quality improvement goals. Ten of the 15 empirical studies involved the application of 5S only [ 27 , 28 , 30 , 32 – 38 ], whereas the other five studies combined several tools and methods including 5S [ 24 – 26 , 29 , 31 ]. In addition, 5S was regarded as a method under the framework of lean health-care by authors in ten studies [ 24 – 27 , 29 – 31 , 33 , 35 , 36 ] and toward better quality management (or total quality management (TQM)) in three studies [ 32 , 37 , 38 ].

Several studies presented the perceived roles or stages of the 5S application in the quality improvement context. 5S was considered to serve as an initial step toward TQM [ 32 ], as a foundation for continuous improvement [ 35 ], as a foundation for the lean tools to establish a self-ordering, self-regulating environment of sustainable change [ 36 ], and as a solution to improve the disorderly work environment that serves as a potential bottleneck in providing adequate services [ 33 ].

Eight empirical studies focused in low- and middle-income countries, but the resource levels of the studied facilities were not necessarily described in the articles. One of them, based at a health center in Senegal, highlighted the facility’s chronic resource constraints and its extremely disorderly work environment characterized by full of unwanted items kept everywhere unattended before the 5S application [ 33 ]. However, in the remaining seven studies, it was not clear whether the health-care facilities faced the typical problems prevalent in those countries, such as financial and human resource constraints.

Impacts of 5S application to health-care facilities

Ten empirical studies (nine quantitative and one qualitative studies) presented changes resulting from the 5S application and explicitly stated the research methods in the articles reviewed (Table  1 ). All nine quantitative studies presented measurable changes by comparing the status before and after the interventions without adopting explicit measures to control for potential confounding factors. The qualitative study presented health workers’ views on the changes attributable to the application of 5S in their workplace, daily routines, and services provided. In cases where several tools were utilized in the intervention, it was not possible to identify the extent to which 5S contributed to the changes. One study simply focused on score increases measured for each S (sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain), whereas the remaining nine studies highlighted positive changes in the quality of health-care. Based on the classification of the health-care quality dimensions proposed by the Institute of Medicine (USA) [ 39 ], these changes included measures pertaining to three areas: (a) efficiency, (b) safety, and (c) patient-centeredness.

The efficiency measures included improvements to the work processes, potential cost reductions, and increases in physical space [ 24 – 26 , 29 , 30 , 33 ]. The changes resulting from the 5S application were presented as potential reductions of more than 45 % in the drug-dispensing cycle time [ 24 ]; improved process flows, increased capacity, and shorter stay for all patient classes [ 25 ]; a 70 % reduction in the number of instruments used in minimally invasive spine surgeries (from 197 to 58) and a 37 % decrease in setup times (13.1–8.2 min, p  = 0.0015); potential institutional annual cost savings of US$2.8 million [ 26 ]; a reduction in the turnaround time for a typical test, an increase in the number of tests, cost savings, reductions in the dispersion of the turnaround time, and better space utilization [ 29 ]; increases in inventory turnover by 30 % in a hybrid 5S application site and 4.0 and 43.0 % in two traditional 5S application sites [ 30 ]; and a reduction in the time involved in searching for items and an improvement in their ability to move within the office after the introduction of 5S [ 33 ].

Safety measures included improved ergonomics resulting from the rearrangement and removal of items to eliminate safety violations and improved compliance with regulations [ 27 ], 52 % reduction in the post-Caesarean infection rate and 33 % reduction in the stillbirth rate over the 2-year period [ 32 ], and an improved sterilization process [ 33 ].

The assessment of patient-centeredness measures was based on the time spent on direct patient care increasing from 30 to 61 % after 30 days and improvements in patient satisfaction [ 31 ] and reduction in waiting time for patients and better directional indications for patients [ 33 ].

Adoption of 5S application as part of government initiatives

This review highlighted the application of 5S as part of government initiatives. Of the 15 research articles reviewed, five involved empirical 5S application as part of government initiatives, and these five studies were all concentrated in low- and middle-income countries. In these studies, the 5S application was initiated as part of the local governments’ programs in India [ 28 , 34 ] and national strategies for health-care quality improvement spearheaded by health ministries in Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania [ 32 , 33 , 37 ].

Other types of publications presented case studies on the adoption of 5S as national strategies in low- and middle-income countries. The Castle Street Hospital for Women in Sri Lanka is the first documented case of 5S application to a government hospital in a low- or middle-income country [ 32 ]. Achievements at the Castle Street Hospital led to a pilot study, conducted between 2005 and 2007, to institutionalize 5S at five government hospitals in Sri Lanka [ 40 ]. In 2009, the health ministry of the Sri Lankan government initiated a project with the technical support of JICA to improve the quality and safety of health-care facilities in the whole country (Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition, Project document: improvement of quality and safety in healthcare institutions in Sri Lanka, unpublished). The implementation of the project resulted in the adoption of 5S as part of the national strategies of the Sri Lankan government’s health ministry [ 41 ].

Starting in 2007, 5S was introduced to government hospitals in African countries under the framework of JICA’s Asia Africa Knowledge Co-creation Program (AAKCP). With the aim of applying Sri Lanka’s successful experience to Africa, the program provided assistance in introducing 5S-KAIZEN-TQM to pilot government hospitals, first in eight countries (Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda; phase I: 2009–2013) and then in another seven countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Morocco, and Niger; phase II: 2009–2013) [ 22 , 42 ]. It was reported that the pilot introduction of 5S-KAIZEN-TQM in these government hospitals in the 15 African countries led to an improvement in the visual management of the workplace as well as the service delivery process [ 43 ]. These pilot initiatives led to the formulation of new technical cooperation projects that included 5S as part of the activity components in several participating countries. Those projects resulted in the adoption of 5S as a mainstream strategy for quality improvement in health-care services in Senegal and Tanzania [ 44 – 46 ].

Discussions

Our literature review identified several key findings about the applicability of 5S in health-care facilities. It illustrated the empirical application of 5S in primary health-care facilities and a wide range of hospital areas in Brazil, India, Jordan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, the UK, and the USA. This finding, along with the housekeeping nature of 5S [ 5 ], indicates that 5S could be applied regardless of the locations of health-care facilities. The review also suggests that 5S, a tool that evolved in high-income countries, could improve the health-care quality even in low- and middle-income countries. In addition, the empirical studies presented impacts of the 5S application on quality improvements in the three dimensions of efficiency, safety, and patient-centeredness. These dimensions could be used as viewpoints to identify expected outputs and indicators when a 5S implementation strategy is designed.

Our review identified the role of 5S as a foundation or starting point for quality improvement. This finding could be supported by several normative descriptions in publications pertaining to the application of 5S in health-care facilities. 5S is described as the foundation for all activities aimed at increasing productivity and flow, improving quality, and reducing costs [ 7 ]. 5S is also considered to be the building block or the foundation upon which lean health-care rests [ 47 ]. It is also defined as the process that provides the foundation for building a lean health-care environment [ 14 , 15 ].

This study also highlighted the taxonomic issues surrounding the terms “5S,” “lean,” and “TQM.” Depending on the studies, the application of 5S was meant for different objectives, namely lean health-care or TQM. In their narrative review, Powell et al. [ 20 ] classified the quality improvement models into five categories, including TQM and lean thinking, and regarded 5S as part of the lean tools. TQM was also considered as an approach interchangeable with continuous quality improvement (CQI) [ 20 ]. In contrast, some empirical studies considered 5S as a step toward TQM [ 32 , 37 ]. In some context, the 5S approach toward TQM was represented as “5S-KAIZEN-TQM,” which was also interchangeably referred to as “5S-CQI-TQM” [ 45 ]. Thus, although 5S is commonly considered as a starting point toward lean health-care or TQM, no consensus has been established on the taxonomy involving 5S, lean, and TQM.

In this study, 5S has appeared as part of government initiatives in low- and middle-income countries since the 2000s. 5S has evolved as a lean tool for health workers and facility managers in high-income countries; however, the review findings indicate that 5S has become a strategic option for policymakers to start a government-led quality improvement initiative in those countries.

Thus, our literature review filled knowledge gaps about the applicability of 5S; nevertheless, it also identified areas that need to be further studied. First, 5S’s low-cost and technically undemanding nature implies its appropriateness in health-care facilities facing resource constraints; however, our review results were not sufficient to support this hypothesis. Second, the empirical studies did not provide sufficient insights into the cost-effectiveness, viable scale-up mechanisms, or sustainability of the application of 5S in the health systems. These could be areas of further studies to understand the applicability of 5S, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Since our literature review was limited to publications in the English language, the identified articles do not necessarily reflect the actual distribution of the 5S practices globally. Furthermore, publications other than peer-reviewed research articles cannot generally be retrieved and selected in a systematic and unbiased way; consequently, our study might suffer from a publication bias to a certain extent.

5S could be applied to health-care facilities regardless of locations. It could be not only a tool for health workers and facility managers but also a strategic option for policymakers. They could consider 5S as the starting point of a government-led quality improvement initiative, or more specifically, for improving safety, efficiency, or patient-centeredness aspects, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The low-cost nature of 5S implies that this method is an appropriate initial step toward quality improvement even among resource-constrained health-care facilities. However, the evidence base on its applicability in such settings is limited, and further research is required in this area. In addition, to understand its applicability in the context of strengthening health systems in low- and middle-income countries, the cost-effectiveness, viable scale-up mechanisms, and sustainability of 5S application also need to be further studied.

Abbreviations

AAKCP, Asia Africa Knowledge Co-creation Program; CQI, continuous quality improvement; JICA, Japan International Cooperation Agency; TQM, total quality management

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Acknowledgements

We thank Seydou Sow, Marika Nomura-Baba, Ken Hashimoto, and Michael Reich for improving the quality of our draft manuscript through their intellectual inputs. We also thank Rui Matsuno for her support in the literature search process. We are also grateful to the Takemi Program at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health for institutional support.

There was no financial support for this study.

Authors’ contributions

SK led the process of designing the study, collecting and analyzing data, and drafting the manuscript. AS reviewed and revised the draft manuscript. MJ contributed to the conception and the designing of the study and revision of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Kanamori, S., Shibanuma, A. & Jimba, M. Applicability of the 5S management method for quality improvement in health-care facilities: a review. Trop Med Health 44 , 21 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41182-016-0022-9

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41182-016-0022-9

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Investigation the Impact of 5S Implementation Toward Accident-Free Manufacturing Industries

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• Muhammad Syafiq Ridha Mutaza 7 ,
• Mohd Norzaimi Che Ani 8 &
• Azmi Hassan 9  

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In this paper, the impact of 5S implementation toward accident-free manufacturing industries was reviewed and investigated. The 5S method is a standardized process that when systematically implemented creates and maintains an organized, safe, clean, and efficient workplace. The 5S also implemented and improved the visual controls to make any process non-conformance’s obvious and easily detectable. The 5S is a systematic housekeeping technique used by organizations initiated from Japanese words; Seiri (sort), Seiton (set in order), Seiso (shine), Seiketsu (standardize), and Shitsuke (sustain). The implementation of a 5S environment in a workplace requires employee motivation and good management. All the different levels of an organization need to put their best efforts on a day-to-day basis and work together toward achieving improved performance and reducing waste. The 5S is the most effective tool and widely applied worldwide in any organization to improve the workplace. However, industrial accidents still occurred and increased. Based on current data, the Department of Safety and Health (DOSH, Malaysia) in their Web site stated an increase of accidents by 107% (January to June 2018–2019) and it is a long journey before an accident-free industry can be achieved. Hence, in this research, the impact of 5S implementation toward accident-free manufacturing industries was investigated. The literature of the 5S implementation was thoroughly reviewed through searching from published literature from the Emerald Insight, Elsevier, Google Scholar, and other databases. The data captured from this published literature was analyzed to study the impact of the 5S implementation. The result of this research shows based on the theoretical implementation, the 5S implementation potentially helps the organization to reduce the industrial accident but it requires systematic monitoring plans such as an internal audit. Through an effective investigation in this paper, the impact of 5S implementation on accident-free manufacturing industries was successfully carried out.

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Manufacturing Section, Universiti Kuala Lumpur—Malaysia Italy Design Institute, Cheras, 56100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Muhammad Syafiq Ridha Mutaza

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Mohd Norzaimi Che Ani

Electrical & Electronics Section, Universiti Kuala Lumpur—Malaysian Spanish Institute, 09000, Kulim, Kedah, Malaysia

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Mutaza, M.S.R., Che Ani, M.N., Hassan, A. (2020). Investigation the Impact of 5S Implementation Toward Accident-Free Manufacturing Industries. In: Abu Bakar, M., Azwa Zamri, F., Öchsner, A. (eds) Progress in Engineering Technology II. Advanced Structured Materials, vol 131. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46036-5_18

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