The 5S’s: Five keys to a Total Quality Environment

5S can be considered as one of the most widely adopted techniques in the manufacturing and service sector in Sri Lanka. Along with other techniques such as TQM or TPM, 5S is considered as a fundamental concept, as it establishes the organisational culture required for making and sustaining continuous improvement.

In this environment ‘The Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity’; one of the pioneer organisations in Sri Lanka which is functioning for promoting quality and productivity has organised its second convention on 5S recently. The convention, titled as ‘Total Quality Environment (5S) Convention’, was held in November 2015, for the benefit of the industrialists and organisations who are interested in having a Total Quality Environment in their production plants/organisations.

The Total Quality Environment (5S) Convention was held on 5 November 2015 at the PIM auditorium. All the Resource Personnel were from the organisations, which have achieved success in implementation of 5S and won awards at many award schemes. They all have presented their success stories and more importantly the obstacles they had to face in implementing 5S and therefore it had been a very good opportunity for all participants who are on the way for the excellence in their business segment.

The session started by welcoming by the SLAAQP President Nimal Perera. Then Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri delivered the keynote speech under one of the most important topics ‘Five S for the Mind’ highlighting the need to focus on mind in this regard. He explained the importance of mind by quoting stanzas from Dhammapada and studies of Sigmund Freud. He stressed that removing clutter from the workplace is imperative, but it is similarly important to remove clutter that remains in the mind, in the forms of negative emotions, inaccurate perceptions and false opinions for a more disciplined participant in the course 5S journey. 

Further he said that even though Five S has been successfully implemented in many Sri Lankan workplaces, the depth it contains in making the participants disciplined has not been adequately captured. Finally he elaborated Five P’s of Five S’s: purposefulness, prioritising, purity, perseverance and proactiveness and Five S’s for the matter and Five P’s for the mind. 

Chief Guest Deputy Minister of State Enterprise Development Eran Wickramaratne explained the importance of 5S for a developing country like Sri Lanka to enhance its quality wise and productivity wise values, especially the contribution of the organisations like SLAAQP towards upgrading the country.

Subsequently the eminent presenters did the presentations on how they used innovative methods to implement and sustain 5S, the way they overcame obstacles and the benefits they have had in adopting 5S in their work place with pictorial examples. Presentations came from manufacturing, banking, civil/defence, utilities, power generation and department store sectors. 

Premium Intimates Lanka CEO Vasu Wijegoonawardane, CEAT Kelani Holdings Asitha Gunasekara, Premium Exports Ceylon Miyuru Rajapakshe and David Pieris Motors Dulitha Ranasinghe represented the manufacturing sector and shared their experience and achievements received through 5S implementation. BOC Supergrade Branch 2 M.D. Herath explained the barriers faced in the implementation of 5S in banking sector, which may be quite different when compared with manufacturing.

Nimal Samarakoon for Ceylon Electricity Board and W.A.L. Vidusala represented the Utilities while Roshan Siriwardene explained 5S in Power Generation sector. Shilby Sardar, from NoLimit explained how 5S is important for department stores. It was quite interesting to see how 5S helps to change the mind set of people. Sri Lanka Police, which has created different images among the public throughout its history, explained how they could do complete change through 5S. Officer in Charge, Sapugaskanda Police Station, P.G.S.R. Sanjeewa presented their journey of excellence, challenge for all public organisations.

The day was remarkable for all the participants as SLAAQP has created a first class platform to learn from each other.

5S is the five step method used in any industry/organisation to improve productivity and quality which was originated in five Japanese words: ‘seiri’, ‘seiton’, ‘seiso’, ‘seiketsu’ and ‘shitsuke’. These words describe how to organise a workspace for efficiency and effectiveness by identifying and storing the items, maintaining the area and items, and sustaining the new order. 

The decision-making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardisation, which builds understanding among employees of how they should prepare the work. 

In broader sense 5S can described as bringing about cultural change by making  environment friendly for sake of organisation through improving productivity, quality, cost, delivery, safety and morale.

The Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity (SLAAQP) was founded in 1996 being the successor to the Quality Circle Association of Sri Lanka (QCASL) which was established in 1989. Both associations took lead in promoting quality circles first and then an integrated approach to Quality and Productivity in Sri Lanka. QCASL was admitted to the International Coordinating Committee on Quality Circles (ICCQC) and later the SLAAQP has become the official representative. 

ICQCC is an annual convention organised by countries in Asia. Prestigious cities will host it in world-class convention premises. From the outset, ICQCC seeks to showcase the best international teams (called Quality Circles) by engaging them in a keenly-fought competition that is assessed by a team of experienced judges’ hail from diverse nationalities and industries. ICQCC 2014 was held in Colombo in Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH) with the participation more than 900 foreign delegates. 

The leading entities in the region such as TOYOTA and Kubota from Japan, Samsung from South Korea, TATA, Reliance, TVS, Hero, Bajaj, Ashok Leyland all from India took part and presented their case studies at this two day mega event. SLAAQP represented International Quality Circle Conventions (ICQCC) hosted by other member countries and for the last convention held in Changwon city, South Korea participated four council members. 

However participation of other Sri Lankan organisations for ICCQCs is still in poor in recent years and identified as one of the biggest challenge for SLAAQP to promote quality circles in organisations in Sri Lanka and improve ICQCC participation.   

Another major event organised annually by SLAAQP is National Convention on Quality and Productivity which includes paper presentations pertaining to the theory and practice of Quality and Productivity, and the competitions on several quality and productivity streams for non executive level employees of manufacturing and service organisations and schools. This is important opportunity for organisations to promote their shop floor employees to present their successes in a national forum and to become an award winning team.

Already the year 2015 is past, SLAAQP is ready for 2016 with superior strength, first to organise its annual events, ‘National Convention on Quality and Productivity’, ‘5S Convention’, Seminars on Quality and Productivity and Industry Visits, and then schedule to create a platform to share experience from ‘Great Quality Korea’; everything for our motherland towards Productive and Quality Sri Lanka for our daughters and sons.

[The writer, MBA – Post Graduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura

PGDip (Management) – University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Diploma in Leadership – BlueBerry Hill, Malmo, Sweden, Lean Green Belt, is Editor – Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity, Visiting Lecturer in Management, Human Resource Management Institute (HRMI), European Institute of Professional Education (EIPL) and Manager Supply Chain and Production Planning, Gislaved Gummi Lanka 9 Ltd.]