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

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.