Implementing 5S for Multiple Shop Floor Layout Workstations

[dspinelli]

Hello,

We are an injection moulding company and we are implementing 5S on the Shopfloor. Curare you we have the problem that the periphery of the same IM machine si changing from product to product (different eqipments, different location for benches, packaging, different packaging sizes, etc.). Therefore it is quite difficult to decide how to mark the floor. We tried to overlap the different layouts but they are fitting each other only partially.
Does someone of you have similar problems? How did you solve or at least face this situation?

Any suggestion, example, idea is welcome.

Regards,
Domenico :truce:

 

[bigqman]

Perhaps you are not ready for floor tape commitment. We have used barricade tape and traffic cones as a more flexible way to experiment and understand where the floor tape needs to finally be.

 

[ncwalker]

Also, 5S does NOT mean "Put tape or paint lines everywhere."

The (one of) the 5S goals is a place for everything. And it means - should someone walk up to your injection molding machine, they need to be able to quickly identify if they have what they need to run the job. Things like:
a) Setup or running tools
b) The next job going in
c) Raw material
d) A location for good part
e) A location for bad parts

The list can grow or shrink as needed. But the POINT is:
- The next shift operator comes in, and he needs to be able to assess VERY quickly if everything he needs is there.
- OR the maintenance guy has finished a repair, and the maintenance manager or process lead or whomever, needs to be able to quickly assess if everything that is needed is there.

The point is NOT your engineer needs a tape outline around his stapler because that's 5 S. It is very much not. Your engineer knows where his own stapler is. (Now MAYBE the common stapler in the copy room .....)

So rethink - do you need floor tape? You need a designated area, it doesn't have to exactly match the object with a perimeter shape. You could have a blue square for raw material, a green square for good material, and a red square for scrap (NOT near the green square. )

5S means keep the area neat, so you can quickly identify if your stuff is there via the squares. It also means if you do this blue, green, red scheme on machine A, you ALSO follow the same scheme on machine B so everything is consistent.

Panted squares, waist high fencing, cones, ropes, pedestals, anything.

If you can quickly identify that you have everything you need, without background noise (mess) in the way, you are now 5S. Outlines or not.