Did you know, one of the leading banks of India is saving approximately Rs. 30 million per year by implementing the Five S in their organization?
The bank is implementing Five S and has claimed to have saved on an average Rs 7.5 crore (Rs 75 million) with the help of the quality control programs conducted years back. It was Five S that contributed up to 50% of the savings. Earlier the retrievals of the documents used to take about 2-3 days but now it takes only 30 seconds.
By implementing the First S – Sorting one of the bank’s offices at Mumbai freed up almost 10% of storage space by discarding the employee’s pack-rat tendencies. The company saved around Rs 600,000 through direct pay-off system to the third-party warehousing companies.
How was the Five S implemented practically?
Taking the example of the central Mumbai back office, which successfully cleared two levels of Five S and is considered a model case by the bank. There the employees navigate their way through the workplace using color signages for references. Like orange for the cabinets, blue for the workstations, mauve for the vaults and pink for the storage. Not only that, but the key chains of each key from the key hive. Where the keys belonging to all departments in the office are hung in a central key hive are color-coded according to the department it belongs to. All this made it easy to track when anyone takes out the key as they must register about it in the register.
10 minutes at the end of each working day, is reserved for a daily work management staff meeting. Where the employees discuss their daily work status, problems, and the achievers of any project are applauded. In addition to this meeting, the lights and computers are kept off to save power.
Five S is an entirely people-driven initiative at the bank and they haven’t been slow in recognizing it. In order to sustain employee involvement, the bank is recognizing and awarding individual efforts. also group efforts with certificates signed by the chairman.
Hence, as you can see Five S not only helps you in making your workplace look systematic and tidy but also helps you in resource and space optimization which results in cutting down the costs. This bank is one such example of the implementation of Five S. Have you started to optimize your workplace for better returns?
Compiled by Faber Priyal & Faber Mayuri.
