This article is for production managers, continuous improvement managers, industrial engineers and plant managers who are launching or relaunching a 5S program and want to know what it actually changes at the machine. It answers one specific question: how to measure the effect of workstation organization on minor stops, waiting time and search time around machines, instead of judging it only by eye or by audit score.
- 5S organizes the station, and its gains are counted in seconds at the machine.
- Tool searches, waits and fouling often turn into minor stops.
- A before and after measurement with a control area shows what really went down.
- The short stop curve then helps 5S hold over time.
What 5S changes at the machine
FACT, a French manufacturer of Ergologic® industrial furniture and workstations based in Dagneux, has published Méthode 5S : guide pratique pour organiser votre atelier industriel on its blog (in French: “5S method: a practical guide to organizing your industrial workshop”). The guide covers the five pillars (Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, Shitsuke), the deployment steps from shop floor diagnosis to a pilot area and then the whole site, and three families of indicators to steer the approach over time. It makes a point many plants learn too late: “Une démarche 5S sans mesure est une démarche qui s’essouffle.” (“A 5S approach without measurement is an approach that runs out of steam.”)
5S organizes the workstation. What that organization gains is often counted in seconds and minutes, spread across the whole day: an operator looking for a wrench while the machine waits, a consumable missing at reload time, a dirty sensor causing repeated stops, a changeover that drags because tooling is not where it should be. One by one, these events look harmless. Added up over a shift, they weigh on line performance. They also share one feature: they are rarely recorded, because they are too short to write down by hand.
Where workstation related losses hide
Each 5S pillar acts on a family of losses. Some of these losses show up in machine data, others do not. The table below helps sort them out before deciding what to measure.
| 5S pillar | Typical loss at the machine | What machine measurement can show |
|---|---|---|
| Seiri (sort) | Cluttered station, unneeded parts and tools getting in the way | Little directly: the effect mostly shows through the other pillars |
| Seiton (set in order) | Searching for tools, parts or consumables while the machine waits | Repeated short stops, restart time after breaks, changeover duration |
| Seiso (shine, inspect) | Fouling, jams, dirty detectors, small anomalies left unnoticed | Recurring minor stops on the same machine, often at the same phase |
| Seiketsu (standardize) | Differences from one station or shift to another | Short stops compared by shift and station on the same machine |
| Shitsuke (sustain) | Disorder gradually coming back after a few weeks | Slow rise of minor stops and waiting time over the months |
One limit to keep in mind: a machine sensor sees the state of the machine, not the operator’s movements. Time spent looking for a tool while the machine is running stays invisible as long as it does not delay a restart. For those losses, shop floor observation and time studies are still needed. Machine measurement does, however, cover everything that ends up as a stopped or waiting machine.
Measure before, deploy, measure after: step by step
- Pick a pilot area and a control area. The pilot area gets 5S, the comparable control area carries on as before. Without a control, a seasonal drop in load or a change in product mix can be mistaken for a 5S effect.
- Set a baseline. Before the first sort, record every stop of each machine in the area automatically for several weeks, for example three or four, to cover all shifts and usual product runs.
- Fix the definition of a minor stop. Choose a duration threshold (for example, any stop under five minutes) and keep it unchanged for the whole comparison. Changing the threshold midway makes the figures incomparable.
- Tag short stops with a station related list. A few reasons are enough: looking for a tool or part, waiting for a consumable, cleaning or jam, adjustment. A short list gets filled in, a long list gets ignored.
- Deploy 5S without changing anything else. Log every other change during the project: new part number, staffing change, major maintenance work.
- Measure after, with the same rules. Same duration, same threshold, same reasons. Compare the number of minor stops and their total duration per hour of planned production time, the median changeover duration and the restart time after breaks, in both the pilot and control areas.
Reading the results honestly
Three habits prevent hasty conclusions. First, think in total duration, not only in counts: removing many stops of a few seconds may matter less than one stop of several minutes that comes back every day. Second, look at where stops move to: if tool searches go down but consumable waits go up, the problem has moved, not shrunk. Third, translate the result into production hours: for example, a line that recovers a few minutes per shift and per machine gains, over a month, a number of hours that management understands at once.
Measurement also matters after the project. It gives substance to Seiketsu and Shitsuke: when a machine’s minor stop curve starts rising again, it is the signal to run a new 5S audit at that spot, before disorder settles back in. Showing the audit score and the short stop curve side by side in the shop floor meeting connects the organization effort to a result the teams can see move.
What TEEPTRAK brings to a 5S program
TEEPTRAK measures OEE, downtime and minor stops in real time. A module wired in the electrical cabinet and a sensor at the line edge record each machine’s activity automatically, with no connection to the PLC. Installation takes about one hour per machine and OEE is available within 48 hours, so the baseline can be in place before the first sort. Every stop is time stamped and can be tagged by the operator with a reason list adapted to the station. 5S remains an organization approach led by the teams; TEEPTRAK provides the measurement that shows what it gains. The solution is used in more than 700 plants in more than 30 countries.
Further reading
- Méthode 5S : guide pratique pour organiser votre atelier industriel (FACT, in French)
- Measuring lean project results: set an OEE baseline before you start
- Measuring waiting waste: machine downtime in a lean waste analysis
FAQ
Does 5S really reduce minor stops? It acts on part of them: those caused by tool searches, missing consumables, fouling or poorly prepared adjustments. Minor stops with a technical origin (wear, machine design) call for other actions. Only a before and after measurement tells you which share went down in your plant.
Do you need a PLC connection to measure minor stops? No. A sensor at the line edge is enough to detect stops and their duration, including the shortest ones. The operator adds the stop reason on a tablet at the station.
How long should you measure before starting 5S? There is no universal duration. You need enough data to cover the different shifts and usual product runs, often a few weeks. What matters most is measuring after the project over a comparable period and with the same rules.
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