The 5-S Process is a process for cleaning and organizing your workplace.  The 5 S’s are: Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. Read Part 2 here.

In this tough economy, one of the buzzwords that you may be hearing more often is Lean.  What is it?  Becoming Lean is a systematic effort to eliminate all waste in your business using ideas and techniques that evolved from the Quality movement of the 80’s and 90’s.  While running Lean is a great idea, it’s not a new one.  Being a Philadelphia area company, I have to point out that Lean ideas can be traced back to Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac.”  You’ve all heard the expression, “a penny saved is a penny earned.”  He also talks about the ills of too much inventory in “The Way to Wealth.”  These ideas grew and were refined in the manufacturing arena by Henry Ford, the first to mass produce automobiles.  More recently, the specific tools used in Lean thinking grew out of the Toyota Production System.  So, what defines a “Lean Operation?”  Let’s start with some definitions. Read Part 1 here, written by my fellow associate Bill Drexler.