Looking for 5S Storage?

Look no further than the 5S Superstore! The UK’s only dedicated Lean Manufacturing supplies superstore. The 5S Superstore exists to provide you with everything you need to set-up and run a lean facility, within a few clicks of a mouse!

Popular Products!

5s Storage

Multi Tier Shelving

5S Noticeboards

Here at The 5S Superstore we are proud of our uniquely designed, award winning products and what better way to show off our products on line than in a Video!

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5S Storage Solutions

Shelving systems provide an ideal way of storing, organising and identifying small parts when handling component storage in warehouses and picking areas.

With a wide selection of shelving systems and options we can offer comprehensive solutions for any small parts storage or picking area; multi-tier shelving, mobile shelving, carton flow or sign and marking systems.

Multi Tier Shelving

If you’re looking to increase floor space and optimise storage capacity, our multi-tier shelving is ideal. We also stock a wide range of Multi Tier Shelving and Lean Supermarket Shelving.

Kanban Bins

We have a large range of 5S Bins and Kanban Bins to help you maintain a smooth flow of parts through your factory flow lines and lean supermarket kit areas. We also specialise in 5S Visual Supplies that transform your facility. We stock a large range of Floor Marking Tapes and Pallet Marking Shapes.

The 5S Superstore exists to provide you with everything you need to set-up and run a lean facility, within a few clicks of a mouse!

From 5S Storage and Training DVDs, to 5S Red Tags and 5S Visual Supplies.

We’re here to help you and your facility to win. To win in this economy, you need to be lean.

5S Visual Supplies

To be a lean manufacturing plant, your culture (people) must think lean and your facilities must be also be lean.

What do we mean by lean?

We’re referring to working smarter not harder. By having a workforce that thinks in a smart (lean) way. By having a facility that supports a visual workplace. By having a work force that actively seeks to eliminates the 7 deadly wastes on a daily basis.

The 5S Superstore is here to not only help you on your voyage to become a lean manufacturing facility, but to help you maintain your lean culture by providing you with the necessary tools.

Our range of high quality Louvre and Perforated Panel based tool and part storage solutions deploy to your chosen value stream or manufacturing cell instantly. Used throughout all industries and facilities including Warehouses, Manufacturing Plants, Food and Beverage, Automotive Lines and Aerospace Manufacturing.

Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing or lean production, often simply “lean”, is a systematic method for the elimination of waste (“Muda”) within a manufacturing system.

Lean also takes into account waste created through overburden (“Muri”) and waste created through unevenness in work loads (“Mura”). Working from the perspective of the client who consumes a product or service, “value” is any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for.

Lean manufacturing makes obvious what adds value, by reducing everything else (which not adding value). This management philosophy is derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) and identified as “lean” only in the 1990s. TPS is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world’s largest automaker, has focused attention on how it has achieved this success.

5S

5S is the name of a workplace organization method that uses a list of five Japanese words: seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke.Transliterated into Roman Script, they all start with the letter “S”. The list describes how to organize a work space for efficiency and effectiveness by identifying and storing the items used, maintaining the area and items, and sustaining the new order.The decision-making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardization, which builds understanding among employees of how they should do the work.

In some quarters, 5S has become 6S, the sixth element being safety.

Other than a specific stand-alone methodology, 5S is frequently viewed as an element of a broader construct known as visual control, visual workplace, or visual factory. Under those (and similar) terminologies, Western companies were applying underlying concepts of 5S before publication, in English, of the formal 5S methodology. For example, a workplace-organization photo from Tennant Company (a Minneapolis-based manufacturer) quite similar to the one accompanying this article appeared in a manufacturing-management book in 1986.

The Origins of 5S

The scheme “Correct Arrangement of the Tool” from a CIT instruction sheet, 1920-1924.

5S was developed in Japan and was identified as one of the techniques that enabled Just in Time manufacturing.

Two major frameworks for understanding and applying 5S to business environments have arisen, one proposed by Osada, the other by Hirano. Hirano provided a structure to improve programs with a series of identifiable steps, each building on its predecessor. As noted by John Bicheno. Toyota’s adoption of the Hirano approach was ‘4S’, with Seiton and Seiso combined.

Some claim that the principles of 5S came from Henry Ford, who was using the CANDO (Cleaning up, Arranging, Neatness, Discipline and Ongoing improvement) method prior to the development of 5S.

A precursor development to the Japanese system of management was outlined by Alexey Gastev’s development and the Central Institute of Labour (CIT) in Moscow.

(The 5 S)

There are five 5S phases: They can be translated from the Japanese as “sort”, “set in order”, “shine”, “standardise”, and “sustain”. Other translations are possible.

Sort (Seiri)

• Make work easier by eliminating obstacles.
• Reduce chances of being disturbed with unnecessary items.
• Prevent accumulation of unnecessary items.
• Evaluate necessary items with regard to cost or other factors.
• Remove all parts or tools that are not in use.
• Segregate unwanted material from the workplace.
• Define Red-Tag area to place unnecessary items that cannot immediately be disposed of. Dispose of these items when possible.
• Need fully skilled supervisor for checking on a regular basis.
• Waste removal.
• Make clear all working floor except using material.
• Sort bad and good things.

Set In Order (Seiton)

• Arrange all necessary items so that they can be easily selected for use.
• Prevent loss and waste of time by arranging work station in such a way that all tooling / equipment is in close proximity.
• Make it easy to find and pick up necessary items.
• Ensure first-in-first-out FIFO
• Make workflowsmooth and easy.
• All of the above work should be done on a regular basis.
• Place components according to their uses, with the frequently used components being nearest to the work place.

Shine (Seiso)

Clean your workplace on daily basis completely or set cleaning frequency time to time

• Use cleaning as inspection.
• Prevent machinery and equipment deterioration.
• Keep workplace safe and easy to work.
• Keep workplace clean and pleasing to work in.
• When in place, anyone not familiar to the environment must be able to detect any problems within 50 feet in 5 sec.

Standardie (Seiketsu)

• Standardise the best practices in the work area.
• Maintain high standards in workplace organization at all times.
• Everything in its right place.
• Every process has a standard.
• Standardise color coding of usable items
• People know the process of that specific job

Sustain (Shitsuke

• Not harmful to anyone.
• Also translates as “do without being told”.
• Perform regular audits.
• Training and discipline.
• Training is goal-oriented process. Its resulting feedback is necessary monthly.
• Self-discipline
• To maintain proper order
• Ensure all defined standards are being implemented and heard.
• Follow the process, but also be open to improvement

Variety of 5S Applications

5S methodology has expanded from manufacturing and is now being applied to a wide variety of industries including health care, education, and government. Visual management and 5S can be particularly beneficial in health care because a frantic search for supplies to treat an in-trouble patient (a chronic problem in health care) can have dire consequences. Although the origins of the 5S methodology are in manufacturing, it can also be applied to knowledge economy work, with information, software, or media in the place of physical product.

5S in Lean Product & Process Development

The output of engineering and design in a lean enterprise is information, the theory behind using 5S here is “Dirty, cluttered, or damaged surfaces attract the eye, which spends a fraction of a second trying to pull useful information from them every time we glance past. Old equipment hides the new equipment from the eye and forces people to ask which to use”

5S Storage