Look to 5S for safety

A clean jobsite can greatly reduce your chances of slips, trips and falls and help improve productivity. Lean “5S” methods can unclutter your jobsite; here’s how!

The dynamics of a jobsite change constantly as the project progresses. Trades come on and off the site as the job continues; each trade brings with it tools, equipment and building supplies needed to do their jobs. If workers aren’t very fastidious, it doesn’t take long for the jobsite to turn into a littered mess that greatly increases chances for trips, slips and falls and can reduce worker efficiency on the jobsite, says Dennis Sowards, president of Quality Support Services (www.yourqss.com), a company that helps contractors adapt Lean practices from manufacturing to the construction industry.

Types of waste
The cluttered look of some jobsites can be attributed to various types of waste going on at a jobsite, explains Sowards. They are the same types of waste that can be found in any type of service, manufacturing or production environment.

Defects: “Defective supplies, defective tools and defective plans all require rework, adding time the workers are on the jobsites and exposed to potential accidents. Doing it right the first time is also about safety,” he says.

Waiting: “Crews waiting for materials or tools is a tremendous source of waste on a jobsite. If materials take too long to be delivered, or take a circuitous route through a jobsite, productivity drops and it increases your chances for poor underfoot conditions that can cause falls,” he says.

Transportation: “Poorly planned jobsites require materials to be set down, picked up and moved more than one time before they are used. Every movement requires energy, time, risks damage and even injury. Materials placed in bad spots can also contribute to site clutter and create slipping and tripping hazards,” he says.

Wasted motion of workers: The more workers have to move to get a job done, the more chances they have to trip, slip or fall. “Well-planned jobsites prevent workers from walking farther than they need to. It’s a matter of putting the workers’ work in their ‘strike zone’ where it’s most comfortable to do. Look at using work carts that put tools and supplies close at hand so workers can spend more time working and less time fetching parts and tools,” he says.

Excessive inventory: “Accountants consider inventory an asset, but on jobsites, especially those with tight working spaces, excessive inventory is a liability,” he says. Excess inventory can be stacked anywhere, but it can also be hidden in stashes and even forgotten. This creates clutter, which slows workers and increases the chances for injuries.

Overproduction: It might make sense to have work crews build ahead certain assemblies, but it also creates an inventory issue that can take up space. If it’s around for too long, it can get damaged, lost or, in the case of high-priced metals, stolen, Sowards points out. Overproduction leads to inventory and more transportation waste.

Tackling waste that leads to injuries
Taking waste out of the process can lead to greater productivity and safety, says Sowards. “If you reduce labor costs by four percent by streamlining processes, that savings falls to the bottom line,” he says.

To tackle waste, Sowards recommends instituting the “5S” process developed and made famous by Toyota. “Even though it is developed for manufacturing, the concepts can be easily adapted to construction,” he says.

The 5S process originates from five Japanese words that roughly translate into these five simple steps:

Sort: “Get rid of the clutter! Workers can’t leave things here and there. Everything comes packaged, and the packaging must be dealt with in a fast, efficient manner. If it’s not managed, it will build up and create clutter. If it’s not being used or won’t be soon used, it is clutter,” he says. Similarly, sort your tools and supplies. If it’s not needed, remove it from the jobsite.

Simplify: “Make a place for everything and put everything in its place. Mark the storage spot so it is easy to see what should be stored there. I worked with one crew that used fall protection equipment every day. At the end of the day, they would throw the harnesses into a gang box, only to take 20 minutes the next day to sort them, untangle them, and don them.

“Instead, we set up a rack with hooks in the trailer for each worker to hang his harness at night. When the 22 workers came in, it took them two minutes to get ready for work as opposed to the 20 minutes. Multiply 22 workers by 18 minutes of time savings, and it quickly becomes significant. Plus, the harnesses were already adjusted correctly for the worker, which improved their safety,” he says.

For tools, develop a simple system to identify tools needing repair so they can be fixed or replaced quickly. “Use a red tag or tape so they stand out and can be pulled from the tool bin easily. The key to simplification is to make everything as visible as possible,” he says. The simplicity should reach into all areas of the work. Put most-used tools and supplies in easy reach, others in less accessible places.

Sweep: “Make cleaning an integral part of every day’s activities. That includes putting things back when you are done with them, developing a way to keep cleaning solutions handy and stocked, and using a Kanban system – some sort of ticket system to indicate when a stocked item needs to be replenished. Some contractors prefer to have distributors stock consumables, and they are very likely to use some sort of Kanban system to make the process easy and reliable,” he says.

Standardize: Using the same system across your jobsites will allow workers to easily move from one site to another. “Workers will know where to find things and what is expected as far as cleaning and sorting is concerned. I also recommend standardizing on the types of tools you stock,” he says.

Self-discipline: Going through the first four steps will yield nothing in greater productivity and safety if you concentrate on it one week and then let is slide after that. “You also must continue to find ways to improve the process. Ask workers who do the work what can be done to improve tidiness or productivity. They are closest to the work and often have the best ideas,” he says.

Safety and 5S
“The 5S process doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to implement. In fact, if you are spending lots of money on buying equipment or processes to implement a 5S strategy, it’s not a Lean practice. It’s not about buying; it’s about change that helps you standardize your tools, equipment and processes that makes you more productive and safer on the jobsite,” he says.

Published in the November/December 2007 issue of Contractor Tools and Supplies magazine.

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