6S Your Way To Success

I must admit that I didn't come up with that crafty little title. I stole it from the base newspaper that printed this story on 6S which is a lean methodology acronym that stands for sort, straighten, shine, standardize, sustain, and safety. It is a workplace management tool that is pretty useful in making some quick gains in your work and personal life (ie your wife cleaning out your closet). This is probably one of the most basic projects I have done in my relatively new line of work implementing lean and continuous process improvement throughout my base, however it always amazes me how much waste you can eliminate by doing something so simple. As simple as something like 6S is we often find ourselves sawing away instead of sharpening the saw (see previous post here). I have never been what you call neat and organized, however the older I get the more I see the value in setting myself up for success through organization. That's why I think this process is so cool. You wipe the slate clean and create an ideal process that makes it almost difficult to not follow the process. It becomes easier to keep things organized and in control than to revert back to the old, inefficient way of doing business.