Testing new post

 

1.          Anyone who wants to follow Jesus must be prepared to declare like the Indian villager behind the song “I have decided to follow Jesus” (I think you know that story)

“The world behind me, the cross before me. No turning back. No turning back.”

In other words, he is willing to leave the world behind and follow after the cross. What does that mean?

A satisfied client

Was pleasantly surprised to receive this unsolicited testimonial from an appreciative client. Didn’t think of posting it here until now.

I should take this opportunity to share a bit about how I usually conduct my 5S training.

Besides helping the trainees to understand the meaning and application of 5S (through lots of practical examples), my primary goal is to help them to develop a keen eye to notice 5S ‘problems’. Very often, our senses become dulled with time, and we fail to notice how messy, untidy and dirty our workplace have become. To help my trainees to ‘recalibrate’ their eyes, I make them form teams and do an audit of their own workplace and assign a score for Seiri, Seiton and Seiso. I tell them, “from now on, when you patrol your own work area, you must put on 5S spectacles.”

Surprisingly, I find that their standards were often even stricter than mine! Maybe it’s because my own senses have become dull after visiting so many dirty factories.

Let’s bring back Operation Broomstick

Last Tuesday, a Canadian visitor wrote a letter to the Straits Times Forum. Unlike this other Canadian visitor, Mr James Cruikshank did not mince his words in describing what a filthy city we have become. Several other readers wrote expressing their agreement with his views.

Many years ago we used to have a Keep Singapore Clean Campaign. Later we upgraded it to the Keep Singapore Clean and Green Movement. Recently we further upgraded (that’s Singapore for you, we believe in continuous upgrading) that to the Keep Singapore Beautiful Movement.


As for me, I say, let’s bring back Operation Broomstick. What’s the point in trying to be green when you cannot even be clean? And if you are dirty, there no way you can be beautiful, right?


What is Operation Broomstick?


According to the People’s Association’s publication, Citizens, Conversations & Collaborations: Chronicles of the Citizens’ Consultative Committee:


“The Housing and Development Board launches Operation Broomstick in 1968 to clear housing estates of litter and rubbish, and CCC leaders are there to help get residents to take an active part in the massive nationwide operation – right down to elderly women with their own brooms.”

The second photo shows Health Minister Chua Sian Chin at MacPherson Estate

"PM Lee personally leads the way in a mass drive to spring-clean the city for the National Loyalty Week in 1959."

Don’t waste just because it’s free

Wasted Today

I am one of those lucky Singaporeans who get not one, but two free newspapers delivered to his doorstep practically every day. From Monday to Friday, I get My Paper; and from Monday to Saturday, I get Today. In addition, I subscribe to the Straits Times.

It was raining this morning (Saturday) and as usual our free copy of Today was totally ruined by the rain as the delivery man didn’t bother to throw it further into our driveway. On the other hand, our paid copy of the Straits Times was nice and dry.

So why the difference? I can only surmise that the difference lay in the attitudes of the delivery men. In the case of the Straits Times, the vendor knows that if the newspaper was damaged by the rain, we would complain and he would have to make another trip and compensate us. In the case of the Today, he probably thinks; “Ah .. it’s free, so these people won’t dare to complain” .... and he is right.

Photo above - my neighbour's newspapers; below - ours.

Wasted toilet paper

The other day I had to use the public toilet in a shopping centre in the Bukit Timah area. To my horror, I saw that somebody had removed the entire roll of toilet paper – and these are the commercial rolls which are much bigger than the normal ones we used at home – and dumped them on the cistern. When I brought it to the attention of the toilet attendant/cleaner, he told me this was a common occurrence. “What to do? Free one; not their own money; so anyhow waste lor!”.

Sigh. How depressing to hear this. But never mind. Let me cheer you up with a joke.

Early in my career, I worked as an industrial engineer in Philips. We had many Dutch expatriates; but my boss was a Belgian. It was really fun to attend social functions with these people because they liked to trade insults/jokes about each other's country. I remember this joke told by my Belgian boss. He said; “If you drove from Belgium into Holland, how would you know that you have crossed the border? Well you can easily tell by the rolls of toilet paper hanging out to dry in the backyard. They use it at least twice, you know!”


Related post.

Sarawak Regional 5S Convention

Last Monday, 15 November 2010, I was in Kuching to deliver a paper at the Sarawak Regional 5S Convention (Konvensyen 5S Wilayah Sarawak). It was an eye-opener for me because even though we’ve had 5S in Singapore since 1986, we never organised a 5S convention. The biggest 5S event in Singapore as far as I can remember was the award-presentation ceremony for the Inter-company 5S Competition in 1989.

Organised by the Malaysia Productivity Corporation (Sarawak Office), this Regional 5S Convention drew a huge crowd of more than 250 participants. I should congratulation the MPC for having done such a great job in promoting 5S in Sarawak. The highlights of this convention were:

1) 5S Song by Sedidik Sdn Bhd (a Childcare Centre)
2) Performance by Sekolah Seni Kuching
3) Presentation of 5S Certificates to ‘5S-certified’ companies
4) My paper on “Issues of Sustaining 5S practices”
5) Presentation by Hospital Tenom, Sabah – “Enhancing excellenct service delivery through 5S practices”
6) Presentation by Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara – “Developing, sustaining and impact of Quality Environment Practices”
7) Presentation by Sarawak Land and Survey – “Organisational transformation through 5S practices”

5S Song by SeDidik Sdn Bhd

5S Dance by Sekolah Seni Kuching

Besides presentations by the four speakers, there was an exhibition by a number of 5S-certified organisations including an interesting one by Sedidik Sdn Bhd (a Childcare Centre). Personally I am very impressed by the work that MPC has done to promote 5S and the commitment shown by the award-winning organizations. Seeing the efforts and results of these companies, I think the MPC consultants have done a great job is teaching and guiding them in the implementation of 5S

They have correctly identified sustenance as a key challenge and I hope my paper has contributed a little to this very difficult topic. The key thrust of my speech was that 5S is above all a management issue and not a worker programme as many organizations mistakenly thought. As such the focus should always be on how to manage the programme in a structured ongoing manner, and I recommended that they adopt the PDCA methodology. Through a yearly repetition of the PDCA cycle, an organisation can assess its current situation, set appropriate goals, develop a good plan which is then implemented thoroughly and then the situation systematically monitored, reviewed and corrected if necessary. And such a PDCA cycle should be carried out at different levels of the organisation in an integrated manner - just like the way TQM companies implement Policy Deployment or Hoshin Kanri.

I also cautioned them that the one area that they must pay close attention to is the middle management. On there shoulders lie the heavy burden of leading the 5S movement at the operational level. They are also the ones most pressured for time. In many organisations, this turn out to be the weakest link.

As a result of seeing the huge efforts put in by the participating companies, I am alerted to one other danger. Fatigue or overload can cause the leaders at the front line to grow weary or even apprehensive of 5S activities. I have seen this happen in many organisations here in Singapore with respect to the Quality Circle movement. Still, with the PDCA approach, the management can look out for and manage this problem. As the 5S movement matures, emphasis should shift from ‘song-and-dance’ type promotion to incorporating 5S into the daily operational processes; in other words, Standardization.

Below are photos of some of the exhiibits

Lessons on Productivity from a humble bricklayer

Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924) began life as a humble bricklayer and rose to become the president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. (I guess in those days, they did not have an equivalent society for Industrial Engineers yet).

As an apprentice, he learnt his trade from a master bricklayer. Like Bruce Lee, he was not content to simply learn and apply. He observed and asked questions. He noticed that the traditional method of laying bricks had many unproductive movements. He also noticed that different bricklayers employed different methods.

Through careful study and applying an innovative spirit, he was able to eliminate many wasteful motions and simplify the method. This humble bricklayer taught the world a new discipline called Motion Study.

All the work that we do with our two hands can be broken down into basic movements called ‘motions’. For example, to pick up your pen to begin writing, you need to Reach, Grasp, Move, Position etc. Gilbreth named these motions, ‘Therbligs’, the reverse spelling of his name except for the last two letters. By careful examination of the work process, one can always improve the work method by Eliminating, Rearranging, Combining and Simplifying the motions. Subsequently, people like Ralph Barnes built on the work of Frank Gilbreth and came up with the Principles of Motion Economy. Such principles lay the foundation of Work Study and modern Industrial Engineering.

Like Bruce Lee, Frank Gilbreth exhibited the quality of a ‘kaizen mind’. He was:

a) Not satisfied with the status quo,
b) Always questioning existing methods of doing things,
c) Always looking for better ways of doing things,
d) Open to new ideas no matter where they came from,
e) Constantly coming up with new ideas and innovations.

Frank Gilbreth married a lady called Lillian; a psychologist. Together, the engineer-psychologist partnership gave the world many innovations. They had twelve children, six boys and six girls. When asked why he had so many children, Frank often replied, “Oh, they come cheaper by the dozen”. Two of their children wrote a book titled, Cheaper By The Dozen. They documented the ways his father applied the IE methods to manage their home. This book was made into a funny (black and white) movie which I saw many years ago.

An example of reduced motions

Nowadays, when we Singaporeans traveled in a bus, we would use an Ezlink card to tap on the card reader when we boarded the bus. It took only one simple ‘motion’. Compared to the previous stored value card of a few years ago, it was a significant improvement. You may say that the saving is only a couple of seconds; but applied to the line of passengers boarding a bus during peak hours, multiplied by the number of stations along the route and the thousands of trips each day, the time saving for the country as a whole is tremendous, don’t you think?

Productivity and Bruce Lee

Last night I watched the final episode of the tv series, The Legend of Bruce Lee, a rather detailed biopic of the late kungfu superstar. His character and philosophy of life reminded me somewhat of the definition of productivity that I told you about (here) some time ago; namely:

Productivity is, above all, an attitude of mind. It seeks to continually improve what already exists. It is based on a conviction that one can do things better today than yesterday and better tomorrow than today.

(From the report of the Rome Conference - European Productivity Agency, 1958).

If I asked you for one word to describe Bruce Lee’s fighting style, the words ‘fast’ or ‘speed’ will probably come to mind. But it wasn’t just the speed of his movements that made him such an outstanding martial artist. Apparently he went to great lengths to study the movements of the various fighting styles including his own original Wing Chun style. He meticulously refined these movements, cutting away the wasteful “motions”, as what we would call them in Industrial Engineering jargon. He even tried to combine a block simultaneously with a counter-attack.

People thought he was incredibly arrogant when he posted a sign outside his martial arts school saying that he would accept a challenge from anyone, anytime, any place. Actually his primary motive was to ‘upgrade’ and learn from his opponents. And after each encounter he would befriend his opponent and was totally open to share the secrets of his own craft.

Thus we see that this man was:

a) Never satisfied with the status quo.
b) Always questioning existing methods of doing things.
c) Always looking for better ways of doing things.
d) Open to new ideas no matter where they came from.

e) Constantly coming up with new ideas and innovations.

Such an attitude is central to the meaning of productivity and we would do well to learn from him. But one aspect of his character which we want to avoid is his stubbornness. He refused to accept advice from his loved ones to seek medical attention even when it became obvious that he had a serious health problem. The rest as they say, is history.

Contents of my book Ideas@work

These are the contents of my book, Ideas@work.

Introduction
Acknowledgements

Part 1: Managing the Staff Suggestion Scheme
Chapter 1: What is a Staff Suggestion Scheme?
Chapter 2: The Role of the Suggestion Scheme Committee
Chapter 3: The Role of managers and supervisors
Chapter 4: The Role of the suggester
Summary of Part 1

Part 2: The 4 stages of making a suggestion
Chapter 5: Problem finding - How to Spot opportunities for Improvement
Chapter 6: Fact finding - How to Investigate Problems
Chapter 7: Idea finding - How to Get Ideas
Chapter 8: Solution finding - How to Write Suggestions
Summary of Part 2

List of Japanese terms used in this book
References and further reading
Index
About the author

My first published book – ideas@work

I have just published my first book; Ideas@work. It is about how to manage the suggestions programme or what is more popularly known here in Singapore as the Staff Suggestion Scheme or SSS.

To explain what this book is about, its aims and the readers it is targeted at; I have reproduced below, word-for-word, the Introduction I wrote in this book. Briefly this is what it says;

This book is mainly, but not exclusively, for managers in companies that already have, or wish to introduce the SSS. This would include most companies in Singapore that want to vie for the Singapore Quality Class or Singapore Quality Award because Employee Involvement is one of the key areas that they will be assessed on.

There are three main avenues that such companies should adopt to systematically involve their employees in the total quality process; Quality Circles, 5S and SSS. Of these three, the most difficult in my opinion is the SSS. Hence I have decided to write about SSS instead of 5S which I have more experience with. The other reason is that there are not many good books on SSS in the market which focus on the heart of the problems that companies face and come up with a comprehensive yet simple model to address them. I have also tried to craft my book in a style that will make it an easy read for busy executives.

Initially I published my book at the online book store, Lulu.com. However, the performance has been quite dismal and I have decided to republish at a later date as an ebook. Meantime, if you are in Singapore and Malaysia; you can still purchase the print copy at S$18. Details at the side bar.

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INTRODUCTION

My first encounter with the Staff Suggestion Scheme was when I was working as an industrial engineer in Philips Singapore Pte Ltd. That was around 1980. One day, I saw a big exercise book that the production manager had placed at the front of one of the assembly lines. He asked his staff to write down their suggestions for improving the efficiency of that line. As the IE responsible for that line, I was curious to hear the feedback from the production operators. Thus I eagerly checked that book every morning; but to my disappointment, I did not see a single suggestion until several days later. Finally somebody wrote a ‘suggestion’ complaining that the packing area at the end of the line was very hot and stuffy. She suggested that fans be installed in that area. Since then, I have come to discover just how difficult it was to solicit ideas and suggestions from the rank-and-file workers.

In 1984, I left my job in Philips to join the National Productivity Board as a trainer and consultant. I had read in the newspapers that the National Productivity Board was sending many of its consultants to Japan to undergo training in the area of productivity management and I was very eager be included in such a program. In September 1985, I finally got my chance to receive such training when I was sent for the three-and-a-half month Productivity Development Project (PDP) Fellowship program in Japan. During that trip, I learnt a lot about how the Japanese were able to adapt the management concepts which they had learnt from the Americans, and applied them successfully in the workplace; even more effectively than their American teachers, in fact. I had the precious opportunity to visit many outstanding Japanese companies like Canon, Nipon Kokan Steel and Komatsu. I also experienced a two-week attachment in Aisin Seiki which was a subsidiary of the Toyota group.

My learning journey on Japanese productivity techniques continued when I returned to Singapore. Over the next seven years, I worked alongside many Japanese advisors who had been sent by the Japan Productivity Center to train us. Some of them, the so-called Long-term Experts (or LTEs) were stationed in NPB Singapore for periods of two or more years. Two of the experts that I worked with were Mr Hajime Suzuki and Mr Kazuo Tsuchiya. I learned a lot about Japanese management concepts and techniques from them.

Besides the LTEs, the Japan Productivity Center also dispatched Short-term Experts (or STEs) to Singapore for short assignments of about two to three weeks each time. One of them was a gentleman by the name of Motomu Baba who made several trips to Singapore. Baba-san, as we called him specialized in TQC, or Total Quality Control. I was his main ‘counterpart’ and learned much about what is today called TQM (Total Quality Management) from him. At the same time, I continued my learning journey through reading productivity books written by Japanese experts. In 1989, I had another chance to undergo training in Japan. This time, it was a month-long program on TQC organized by the Asian Productivity Organization or APO. It was led by TQC expert, Dr Noriaki Kano.

One thing I have learnt about the Japanese approach to productivity is that they placed very strong emphasis on Kaizen, or continuous improvement through Employee Involvement. (I trust that by now, there is no need for me to explain what is Kaizen). For example, during our plant visits, the Japanese hosts would invariably arrange a session whereby workers from the shopfloor would make presentations to us about their kaizen projects. Such Japanese companies usually have in place very structured ‘kaizen’ programs to encourage and empower their employees to contribute ideas to improve their own workplace. Three such programs are:

(i) 5S Good Housekeeping and Workplace Organization
(ii) Quality Control Circles, and
(iii) Staff Suggestion Schemes

In 1992, I left the National Productivity Board and set up my own consulting practice. Since then, I have undertaken numerous training and consulting assignments for companies in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to help them to implement such ‘total employee involvement’ programs. My experience so far is that, of these three, the staff suggestion scheme is the most difficult. In my work as a management consultant, I have seen many companies that claim to have a staff suggestion scheme. On closer look, most of them were struggling to sustain it. More often than not, their suggestion boxes were empty or filled with sweet wrappers and sometimes, even cigarette butts. Other than Japanese companies, I have rarely seen any organization achieve significant success in the staff suggestion scheme. Even the outstanding organizations that have won the coveted Singapore Quality Award had to struggle to keep their suggestion schemes alive.

The root cause of this problem is the lack of understanding. It is indeed sad that almost one quarter of a century after the publication of Masaaki Imai’s book Kaizen, The Key to Japan’s Competitive Edge, very few companies have fully understood what Imai tried to teach. The staff suggestion scheme is a good example. In his book, Imai devoted a significant portion to describe how Japanese companies successfully harnessed the creative ideas of their staff through the suggestion system. Yet how many non-Japanese companies have successfully implemented the staff suggestion scheme?

Take for example this large government-related company in the defense industry in Singapore that I came across a few years ago. This company has been rated an ‘excellent’ company having won the Singapore Quality Award, our equivalent of America’s Malcolm Baldridge Award and Japan’s Deming Prize. A member of their suggestion scheme committee admitted that they had been finding it tougher and tougher to achieve the target of five suggestions per employee per year. As such they intended to reduce the target in the following year. “We want to go for quality rather than quantity”, he concluded.

I was very disappointed to hear that because that statement clearly showed that he did not understand what is meant by quality of suggestions and or what the suggestion scheme is all about. By quality, he probably meant suggestions that could bring about big tangible benefits. He did not understand that any employee involvement program that did not garner significant participation from the staff is a failure. When it comes to staff suggestions, numbers is the name of the game. It is not a zero-sum game. Both quality and quantity matter in the suggestion scheme; and if properly managed both should go up at the same time.

Anyway, I do not blame this manager. His organization, like many others had probably embarked on the suggestion scheme simply because the top management had instructed him and his colleagues to do so. Maybe the big boss had just attended a seminar where he heard highly inspiring ‘success stories’ about how other companies had benefited from a suggestion scheme. He then decided to introduce it in the company without an in-depth understanding.

Another possible scenario is that they wanted to vie for the Singapore Quality Award and one of the key factors to be evaluated is Employee Involvement. They needed to be seen to have an active staff suggestion scheme to stand any chance of winning the award.

Hence, you can see that in such an environment, the suggestion scheme simply will not last. Even if it did, the staff running it would be very demoralized.
And that is the whole purpose of this book – to help you understand what is a staff suggestion scheme and how to manage it. For a staff suggestion scheme to function effectively, three groups of people in the organization must fully understand their roles;

· The suggestion scheme committee which design and manage the scheme,
· The line managers who lead the staff who actually make the suggestions,
· The rank-and-file workers themselves; the so-called ‘suggesters’.

This book is written for the first two groups - the suggestion scheme committee members and the line managers.

Besides understanding their role, the suggestion committee must also know how to set up an effective system. Thus, I will be explaining the various subsystems that make up the company’s staff suggestion scheme.

As for the second group, the line managers, my aim is to help them to see how important their role is; a role that is often not fully understood. On their shoulders lies the main responsibility of promoting the staff suggestion scheme in their own departments or sections. They must encourage, guide and empower their subordinates to come up with more and better quality suggestions. They must help them (the staff) to understand their role in the staff suggestion scheme. Thus, this book will also address, indirectly, the needs of the last group of people mentioned above, namely the rank-and-file workers who actually contribute the suggestions.

This book is divided into two main sections. Part 1 covers the concept of the staff suggestion scheme and the roles of the three groups of people mentioned above. In Part 2, I will introduce a simple methodology that the staff can use when he is making a suggestion.

It is my desire that after reading this book, you will be able to help your company to better manage the staff suggestion scheme whether in the role of a suggestion scheme committee member or in the role of a line manager. As a manager, I hope you will understand that empowering your staff to make suggestions is part and parcel of your job. When you succeed in this role, you would have become a more effective leader and manager. I wish you every success.

Lam Chun See

Please do not add anymore S’s

In recent years, some companies and consultants have come up with their own versions of the 5S model by adding an additional S to make it 6S. Most commonly, the 6th S stood for Safety. Their aim is to place special emphasis on Safety. I have even come across one company that adopted 7S. Besides Safety, the additional S came from a Japanese word beginning with S. I am sorry I cannot recall the Japanese word, but I think the meaning had to do with work morale. I personally think it is not a good idea to add anymore S’s to the original 5S model.

1. The 5S Model is already a fairly well-known and universally accepted management concept. The term and its meaning too have become quite standardized. Hence, to come up with something like 6S will only serve to confuse the public.

2. Often the 6th S, such as Safety, does not fit logically into the 5S meaning. Each S in the 5S model denotes a set of actions or approach. Hence Seiri is Clearing; to sort and discard unnecessary items, Seiton is Organizing; to arrange necessary items systematically and so on. The result of these actions is better safety, less waste etc which further leads to lower cost and higher profitability. Safety being a noun simply does not fit into the set; unless these organizations are prepared to re-define the each of the 5 Ss in terms of nouns such as clutter, orderliness, cleanliness etc.

3. In the case of Safety, it is superfluous because it is already addressed the other 5S steps; especially Seiton, and specifically Visual Control (see example below). Safety is the result of 5S not an additional ingredient in the 5S dish. In Chinese we say don’t draw a snake and add legs to it – 画蛇添足。

Instead of trying to modify the conventional 5S model, I think companies should focus their energies on implementing the 5S more effectively. Sometimes companies having practiced the 5S for a couple of years become complacent and think that they ‘have arrived’ and try to expand the 5S movement by adopting 6S. The workers will surely be able to see that they have added nothing new. Worse still, they will conclude as I do, that the managers do not really understand what is 5S in the first place.

Visual control for safety example (1)

One of the most common applications for visual control is in the area of safety; specifically, to highlight a hazard. A common example is seen in the photo below. These steps are found outside the Tiong Bahru MRT station. Because of the jagged shape of the steps, there is a danger that people in a hurry may trip over them. Hence the edge of the steps are painted in bright yellow colour to highlight the unsafe condition.

However such visual controls devices are not very useful if they are not well-maintained. The other day, I was at the Ghim Moh wet market when I saw a delivery man trip over this low ledge in the floor. Fortunately, the man who was carrying some goods did not fall down. As you can see from the photos below, the paint on the floor has faded. The visual control device has lost its effectiveness.

You may say that this is a very minor problem. But, one principle we often emphazise when it comes to 5S and Safety is that it is always the small things that count. Many serious accidents are caused by minor shortcomings the workplace. If you are not convinced, ask this gentleman.

Even schools need 5S

My friend Peh has posted an article in his blog about 5S here. It is written in Chinese but the gist of it is this:

"Japan is a developed country. Visitors Japan are impressed by their cleanliness, discipline and first class service. They excel in many areas especially in the management of 5S.

In contrast, here in Singapore, 5S is not well regarded. Bad housekeeping practices can be seen everywhere including our educational institutions. If our kids are regularly exposed to such messy surroundings in school, when they grow up and join society, they will adopt the same standards."

In contrast Japanese students are indoctrinated with good 5S disciplines in schools. Read about it here.

What a waste (2) – Ice cubes

I notice that in Singapore, whenever we order a cold drink at a hawker centre or food court, it’s a common practice to get much more ice cubes than we really need. Much of this ice is simply discarded later. Overall, this results in tremendous amount waste of energy and water for our country; not just to produce the ice, but to transport it and preserve it.

With the ongoing concern for the environment and efforts to go ‘green’; I think we can do something to reduce this wastage. For example:

1) Launch a campaign to persuade Singaporeans to take their drinks without ice. Often when we order canned drinks, they already come chilled anyway. Why not save yourself 10 cents and help save the earth?

2) Launch a campaign to educate drink stalls to serve less ice. I suspect that in some cases, such as fruit juices, they give you more ice so that they can cut down on the amount of juice they serve.

3) Come up with a practical way to recycle the ice cubes. Of course I do not mean to re-use the ice cubes for drinks. One area I can think of is to re-sell it to the fish mongers at nearby wet markets who require large amounts of crushed ice. Here’s how. Every food court and hawker centre should be equipped with a large ice box. The cleaners should rinse the leftover ice cubes and store them in the ice box. The next morning, if it is a hawker centre next to a wet market, the fish mongers can help themselves to the ice. Maybe they can be charged a nominal fee.

In fact, last month I put forward this suggestion to Reach. They relayed it to the relevant ministry which then gave me an acknowledgement and a promise to look into it. It’s been more than a month and I have not heard again from them. I doubt I will ever hear from them again :(

Tomorrow will be better than Today

In 1988, when I was working as a (quite young) management consultant with the National Productivity Board (NPB), I was assigned to Tat Seng Paper Containers Pte Ltd as a part-time productivity manager. At that time, NPB had a scheme called Promis. Promis stood for Productivity Manager in SME, a term coined by our then chairman, Mr Mah Bow Tan. The idea was to let promising SMEs engage the services of a productivity manager even though they were too small to afford such a full-time staff. I think I spent two days a week there for about a year.

Anyway, when I was there, the first thing I did was to organize a series of productivity talks for all the employees. The four topics that I chose were:

a) What is Productivity?
b) The importance of Good Housekeeping
c) Cost Reduction through Reduction of Waste
d) Quality Awareness

Together with the productivity committee, we then launched a company-wide productivity movement called 3Ps. 3Ps stood for Productivity Promotion Through Participation. (通过参于活动提高生产力)

(By now you must be quite amused at how fond we government officials were of using acronyms. Sorry, you’ll have to bear with it because there’s more to come.

Haha.)

From the April 1988 edition of Productivity Digest

The 3Ps programme I introduced was further made up of 3 initiatives (each beginning with the letter S).

These were:

a) The 5S programme
b) Safety promotion
c) Staff Suggestion Scheme (SSS)

To cut a long story short, we decided to launch our 3Ps programme with a Big Clean Up. We chose a Saturday which was just before the Chinese New Year to do this. The GM, Mr S M Loh, myself and our Japanese advisor, Mr Suzuki made short speeches. This was followed by some refreshments and the Big Clean Up. Everybody, including the GM rolled up their sleeves to clean up the factory.

Whilst the cleaning action was going on, we played a song over the public address system that I had specially chosen for that occasion.

Yes, you’ve guessed it. The song was 明天会更好 (Tomorrow will be better)

Now here is a quiz question for you. Why did I choose this song?

Answer.

Productivity is, above all, an attitude of mind. It seeks to continually improve what already exists. It is based on a conviction that one can do things better today than yesterday and better tomorrow than today.

(From the report of the Rome Conference - European Productivity Agency, 1958).

Bring 5S with you wherever you go

When I conduct 5S training, I like to end my session by reminding my trainees that they should bring 5S wherever they go. This is another way of saying that they should not apply 5S only in their workplace but other places as well; such as in public places, roads, car parks and of course the home.

Let’s take public places for example. If you take a good look around, you will find many examples of inconsiderate behaviour such as littering, inconsiderate parking of vehicles as so on. In fact, a number of blogs have surfaced highlighting such “Bad 5S” as I like to call them. Here are 2 such blogs by Stompoli that I read frequently:

1) Be heard, be seen
2) Irresponsible motorists in Singapore

Recently, I too came across a couple of such situations that I would like to share with you here:

This photo was taken along Pandan Loop sometime in November last year.

This one was taken just last week in Tagore Lane.

What a waste (1) – Lost in car park

Last night I visited a friend who lived in Edgefield Plains. I had a rather frustrating experience trying to park my car in the multi-storey car park at Block 107.

When I first turned into the car park, I proceeded to drive to the upper floors to look for the visitors’ lots. The car park was very long, and when I finally reached the end of the 4th level, I discovered that there was no ramp to go up to the next level; and thus far all the parking lots were marked red, meaning they were reserved for residents. Thinking that I must have overshot the ramp, I went down to the 3rd level (it was a ‘one-way street’ type car park), and then went up to the 4th level again. As it turned out, the 4th level was the uppermost level. But still I did not see any white parking lots.

By that time, I was getting quite agitated and panicky as I was going to be late. Thinking that perhaps the visitors’ car park was in another building, or in some open area, I impatiently descended; round and round, floor after floor – did I mention that it was a very long car park?

I went out to the main road, drove around the block and found another entrance with a sign pointing to a multi-storey car park. When I finally found the car park, I realized that it was the same car park, but this was different entrance. Not knowing what else to do, I drove in and then I finally saw it - a sign saying that the visitors’ car park is in Level B1 in the basement. When I finally arrived at my friend’s home, I found out that practically every other visitor had the same frustrating encounter; and to my relief that, several guests arrived even later than me.

This is a classic example of poor design which did not take into consideration the basic principle of population stereotypes. In brief, Population Stereotype is “A seemingly arbitrary choice, or particular option, that is chosen by a large proportion of a given population” (full definition here). For example; look at the tap in this photo. In Singapore, when we want to turn the tap off, or reduce the flow, we would push the lever down. However, in Jakarta, I discovered that their taps are designed to work in the opposite direction. On a number of occasions, I wet my shirt when I tried to turn off the tap in a hurry. It took me a few days to get accustomed to their taps; but by then it was time to return to Singapore.

When you design a system that does not conform to the population stereotype of your intended users, the chance of human errors and accidents will increase.

Coming back to our car park; in Singapore, the vast majority of multi-storey car parks in HDB estates are designed with the visitors’ lots in the upper levels and painted with white paint, whereas the residents’ lots are in the lower levels and painted red in colour. In this particular case, the situation was made worse by the poor signage. My friends and I all did not see the sign telling us to go to Level B1.

This brings me to a subject related to 5S which is Visual Control. Visual controls have a few basic functions; such as:

1) To provide information (e.g. Male/Female toilet signs, warning signs etc)
2) To give instructions especially operating instructions
3) To simplify the task
4) To alert the user to an abnormal situation; e.g. the Empty warning light in your car’s fuel gauge.

Still on the subject of car parks, have you ever been in a car park where you had to go round and round to look for an empty lot? Often you, the driver, would ask your passengers to help you to look out for them. Sometimes, after going 1 full round, you realize that that level is full and you had to go to the next level and repeat the whole exercise. This, you will recall from my previous post, is called Muda or waste.

The good news is that, many car parks in Singapore have introduced a very user-friendly system of visual control. I have seen it in operation at Vivocity and Funan Centre. At the entrance to the car park, there is a prominent sign board indicating how many lots are available on each level. It helps you to decide immediately which level you should go to. At the car park itself, there are green and red lights to indicate if the parking lot is empty or taken. This is really helpful and saves time. In fact the relevant authorities have gone one step further. At strategic locations in the city, they have displays telling motorists the number of parking lots available in the major buildings.

I hope this article has helped you to appreciate the importance of 5S visual control systems. If you think of, or come across good examples of the creative use of visual controls, do share them with readers of this blog. Here’s another example from my friend Mr Peh’s blog.

Thank you.

5S and 3Mu (Waste)

Like blogger Stomponli, I get quite put off by thick catalogues, brochures and other junk mail which I have absolutely no need for. For example, I recently received 2 brochures together with the notification from LTA (Land Transport Authority) to renew my car road tax. They were about the new seat belt requirements for school buses. As my children are all fairly grown-up, the youngest being in junior college, I really had no use for the information in these booklets; and so I did what any 5S-minded individual would do; I promptly ‘Seiri-ed’ (discarded) them. Thankfully they weren’t as thick as those beautiful, glossy magazines from Ikea and Sony.

It then occurred to me that my action incurred considerable waste. Just think of the resources that went into producing and delivering the brochures to me. And more resources will be needed to dispose off or recycle them. Now multiply that by the thousands who are like me.

One reason why 5S is so popular is that it can be used to reduce or eliminate waste in many situations. But the waste we deal with in 5S is a bit different from that for the LTA booklets. In our case, the waste is not in the form of physical waste of energy or materials. Rather, it refers to wasteful activities that do not add value to the final product or service. This video clip illustrates what I am talking about.

With proper 5S, the person in this video would not need to waste time searching for and accessing the item he wanted. Yes, it’s only a few seconds but it is still waste. Furthermore, it causes some frustration to the workers.

The Japanese have an interesting way of classifying this type of waste. They call it Muri, Mura and Muda; or 3 Mu for short.

1) Muri means Irrationality or Strain. It means; “Doing that which cannot be done”. It usually refers to tasks that are very difficult or impossible to do; such as maintaining prolonged periods of vigilance, or having to remember a lot of things, or straining to read small words or symbols in dim lighting conditions?

2) Mura means Inconsistency. It means; “Not doing that which should be done”. It usually refers to situations where things that are not running as they should; such as when there are systems but people do not follow. One example is the yellow boxes at road junctions where cars are not supposed to stop in. Another example is the people who rush into MRT trains the moment the doors open and not giving the passengers a chance to alight. Their actions slow down the entire process and results in waste.

3) Muda simply means Waste. It refers to activities that do not help or add value, e.g. waiting/delay, rework, repair, etc. Muda is often the result of Muri and Mura.

I have read a Chinese 5S book which translates the 3 Mu’s as, 三不 or, 不合理，不均衡，and 不精简。

The 3 Mu’s are all around us; in our workplaces, homes, roads, public places etc. In any place where there is human activity, you will find them. I believe that if more people are conscious of, and are able to spot these wastes and then apply the simple techniques of 5S to eliminate or reduce them, this world could be a slightly better place to live in.

One technique in 5S which is widely used to reduce waste of the sort I have discussed here is Visual Control. I will explain the next time.

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In my other blog, I once posted an essay about a very different type of waste. Do check it out here.

“Death is only a sadness. Tragedy lies in waste.” – Herman Wouk

Seiso your computer keyboard

In the Sunday Times, Life Section, there was an article about dirty computer keyboards. Often they are much dirtier than they look. According to a British study, our computer keyboards can have five times more germs than a toilet seat. And in Singapore, the report says that many people like to snack at their work station and at the same time never clean them. Such dirty workstations become the breeding ground of disease-causing bacteria that can cause stomach upsets and diarrhoea or worse.

It looks like this is one good place to implement 5S; especially the 3rd S, Seiso. Let’s begin with a question. Do you clean the keyboard regularly? And how do you do it? (Seiso)
As me, I use this duster once a week or so. I find it very effective because the bristles can reach in the places where a cloth cannot reach. Previously I occasionally use a cotton bud. However, it is always better to practice prevention (Seiketsu). Don’t eat when you are at the keyboard!

Besides the keyboard, I also used this duster to ‘wipe’ my LCD monitor. As for those areas behind the computer which is difficult to reach, and where dust tends to accumulate I use this mini-vacuum which I bought at Best Electromart for only $18. But I find that the suction power is a bit weak; which means I need to clean more often when the dust is still easy to remove.

TQM Training for Asean participants

Last month, I was engaged by the Singapore Productivity Association to conduct a TQM Course for a group of participants from the neighbouring Asean countries. Sponsored by the Association of Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS) in Japan, this 10-day course had a long title: Improving the Competitiveness of SMEs through more effective implementation of TQM.

Back in the eighties and nineties, TQM was extremely popular. At that time, I was working in the National Productivity Board, and we had regular attachments of Japanese short-term experts coming to Singapore for periods of two to three weeks. I was assigned as a counterpart to an expert in TQC by the name of Motomu Baba. I learned a lot from him. I was also sent for a one-month TQC course in Japan in 1989. However, in recent years, TQM has become less popular. Many companies that implement TQM ran into difficulties.

Hence, in this course, we devoted a significant amount of time to looking at the pitfalls that companies will face when they implement TQM. In preparing for this assignment, I realized that there are very few books and resources that deal with the so-called ‘failures’. Most books discuss only the success stories and prescribed steps on how to carry out TQM. As such, I had to develop quite a bit of my own materials; including some case studies; but it was a great learning experience for me as well.

As the main objective was to train consultants and trainers who can help SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) with what they learned in this course, I taught them a very simple model of TQM which the participants liked a lot. My model comprised a few key elements:

1) Six core quality concepts
2) Quality Management
3) Quality Improvement
4) Employee Involvement (including 5S and Quality Circles)

As part of the curriculum, the trainees were divided into groups and sent to companies to carry out what we called Field Practice; i.e. to apply what they learned in the actual company environment. I was not involved in this part of the training.

Another interesting segment of the course was a lesson conducted via video-conference by a Japanese TQM expert in Japan. I participated in that session and learnt quite a bit from the Japanese expert by the name of Noboru Machida. Some insights I gained include:

1) In Japan, they do not adopt a common model or concept of TQM. Many organizations develop their own unique approach and gave it a name of their own. In Singapore, our civil service called their’s PS21.

2) One mistake that companies made was to try to implement everything in one go which is too ambitious. Mr Machida likened TQM to a big banquet or buffet. It is not possible to sample every dish. Depending on the company’s own situation, they should choose those relevant aspects and embark on that first; and then slowly build up their own TQM from there.

3) It is wrong to use the words like ‘failure’ or ‘success’ in TQM implementation. Rather, we should adopt a PDCA approach of continuous improvement. After each cycle, we review where we have gone wrong and then we improve on the next cycle.

4) He also shared an interesting feature of the Toyota culture of “People can speak Failure” and “Learn from trouble”. It encourages staff to give honest reports so that they can see what went wrong and then proceed to improve by prevent recurrence of past mistakes.

I took the opportunity to ask some questions about the practical aspects of implementing Hoshin Kanri in a small organisation. Incidentally, he found the name of my firm very meaningful and wished that he had thought of it when he first started out on his own.

I feel a bit sad that many organizations have abandoned TQM just because there has been many ‘failures’. I believe at that time, many of us, including the consultants were still new to the subject; and there was a shortage of good training materials and case studies. Today that has changed; but unfortunately, many organizations have become wary of the name TQM and prefer to move on to newer methodologies like Six Sigma. Maybe, it would be more productive if they had stuck to one system. Anyway, that is only my opinion, and I certainly do not want to go into a debate of TQM vs 6 Sigma.

As always, I found great pleasure in teaching participants from the less developed countries. They are very keen to learn and show great respect to the teacher. I hope I can find the opportunity to go these countries, just like the time I went to Myanmar in 2005 to share my expertise with them.

Why are the Japanese so disciplined?

In 1985, I was sent to Japan for three-and-a-half months of training in Productivity management and promotion. Whilst traveling in their crowded subway and trains, I noticed some people wearing face masks; like the little girl in this photo. I told myself; why are these people are so fearful of catching germs from the crowds. Later, I found out that people wear face masks in public when they themselves are unwell. They do not want to pass their germs to others. I really salute them for their civic-consciousness.

Have you ever wondered why the Japanese are so disciplined? I guess there must be many reasons. But I think one of the main reasons is that they are taught from young to be disciplined and considerate to others.

It starts in the home. In Japan, most women stop working when they are married and become full-time housewives. They devote a lot of time to rearing up their kids and do not employ domestic maids like we do in Singapore. In Singapore, usually both husband and wife have full time jobs and they will employ foreign domestic maids from countries like Indonesia and Philippines to take care for their home and kids in their absence. As such, Singapore children seldom have to do household chores like washing dishes, cleaning their rooms or even make their own beds. Most of the time, they have someone to clean up after them. So of course when they grow up, doing 5S does not naturally to them.

Recently, I learned that at school, Japanese school children are also taught to keep things clean and tidy. Once a week, they have to do what we call ‘area cleaning’ in the army.

Last year my youngest daughter, who studies Japanese language as a third language, was sent to Hamamatsu in Japan on an exchange programme. I asked her to take some photos of Japanese students doing such ‘area cleaning’ (souji wo suru). I share them with you here.

Each student keeps 2 pairs of shoes – one pair for use inside the school, and another pair which they wear home. These racks are for them to keep their extra pair of shoes. Every morning when they get to school, they will change over to their school shoes. At the end of the day, they will change back to their other pair.

Besides cleaning their own class room, they have to clean common places like the gym and the corridors. This is done once a week.