Editor’s note: This article ties in with the new video training series, “Enhancing and Sustaining Lean Improvements While Adding Spark to the Quality Management System” by the author. Click here for more details, or check out the free preview of the series, specifically focused on the topic of sorting, at the end of this article.

“When you were sweeping under the pallet flipper, I jokingly told the other guys to turn it on.” This was one person’s admission after I had spent two full days leading a team in hands-on training of 5S. (By the way, before sweeping out beneath the flipper, I made sure the lock-out, tag-out procedure had been followed.)

This fellow was joking around during the “Sort” training—the first S of 5S implementation. Later, this same person mentioned how after being so unprepared for what was happening during the Sort, he finally did see how valuable the entire process was. He asked me to come back and help elsewhere.

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