Emerging in the late 1950s, in the twentieth century, many credited the creation of the 5S Program to the famous Quality guru, Dr Kaoru Ishikawa, well-known for the “Fishbone Diagram” , 6Ms method for cause and effect analysis, also known as the “Ishikawa Diagram”.
The 5S program is a solid foundation for the implementation of Lean Manufacturing. The change in the organizational landscape, with its adoption, is sensitive and rapid, with significant gains in the welfare, occupational health of those involved in the activities and significant reflexes in the work product.
Today, allied to 5S Management, Safety, a concept propagated by the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in Lean Government management to increase Quality, Administrative Efficiency, Transparency and Speed of processes.
Above, the illustration shows the 5S cycle, having the Standardization (Seiketsu), Organization (Seiri), Order (Seiton) and Cleansing (Seiso) around Discipline (Shitsuke). The sixth “S” recently adopted is Safety, symbolizing how much 5Ss are related to Safety and all ESH (Environment, Safety and Health) or SHE.
There are those who defend the inclusion of other letters “S” to symbolize other words that have their beginning with this letter in the Japanese language, such as “habit”, “persistence” and “economy”, already leaving a little of the concept that in fact, does not prove to be aging. However, this inclusion did not take force in corporate or academic terms, with the five strands being the most important since the creation of the method.
