Set in Order
Set in Order is the third stage in the 5S process. The goal of the Set in Order stage is to make the workplace more visually instructive.
Plan
Most of the gains from the 5S process are realized within the Set in Order stage. In this stage, your team should discuss ways to reduce waste in the workplace and improve existing processes. The outcome of this stage is a finalized location for each of the essential work items and visual guides to help make the workplace more intuitive.
Tools should be kept where they are used and storage locations should indicate what they should store. Lean emphasizes the importance of a visual workplace. When you walk into a storage closet, it should be immediately obvious how the items in the closet are organized and what items are missing. There are a few basic tools utilized to make the workplace more visually instructive:
| Tool | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Colored Tape | Colored tape can be used in a variety of ways. You can outline the placement of certain pieces of equipment, block off areas on the floor that should be unobstructed, or delineate certain areas by color. |
| Labels | Labels can help guide the placement of items in the workplace. This is more appropriate for storage or industrial workplaces, but can find limited use in an office as well. Put labels where an item is supposed to sit when not in use, or to indicate when more supplies need to be ordered. |
| Workplace Diagrams | To help identify issues in the placement of items, as well as potential improvements, it may be helpful to create diagrams of the current layout of the workplace, as well as the planned future layout. |
Do
Once the placement of equipment and tools has been finalized and visual signals have been created, you can begin taping and labeling items. Having a well-defined plan before starting this process will prevent rework. This is something that should only have to be done once, so be careful during the taping and labeling process to make it neat the first time!
Check
After everything has been taped and labeled, ensure that your visual guides are instructive. Consider bringing people in from outside the implementation to test how intuitive the new layout is. Sometimes the concept of a particular visual aid is intuitive, but the actual implementation is messy and ineffective.
Act
If any of the visual guides you created are found to be ineffective or found unnecessary, then replace or remove them at this point. If not, then it's time to move on to the Standardize stage.