5S and visual management

Sort (seiri), set in order (seiton), shine (seiso), standardize (seiketsu) and sustain (shitsuke). Together they remove waste from the physical work area, set visual standards for how it should look and work, and build the discipline that other lean tools need to work. 5S comes from the Toyota Production System.

Run a structured 5S audit. It scores each work area against its 5S standards for each of the five steps, tracks the trend and triggers corrective actions for the gaps. The audit is the working mechanism of the sustain step: without it, 5S tends to last only until the next production crisis.

An andon is a visual alert that signals a production problem, quality deviation or process abnormality the moment it happens. It lets an operator call for help, trigger a defined response and stop the line when necessary without leaving the workstation. The name comes from the Japanese word for a paper lantern, and andon is how jidoka is practiced on the shop floor.

A kamishibai board tracks whether audits are done on schedule using double-sided T-cards. Each card is a process, standard or check a leader verifies at the gemba: the green side means the audit was done and the process conformed, the red side means it found a deviation or was not done, so anyone can read the board at a glance.