If Mother Nature Did 1S - A Photo Story

What is 1S?

For those who have some overview of the ‘Toyota Production System’ or ‘Lean Production System’ understand the concept of 5S and hence, 1S. 5S is the foundational concept to begin any Continuous Improvement endeavour or Kaizen in an organization. The conventional 5S’s listed in the Toyota Production System are:

SORT
SET-IN-ORDER
SHINE
SUSTAIN
STANDARDIZE

However, at Vineet Sethi Consulting, we do 5S in a more sustainable and progressive way – we call it ‘Advance 5S‘. There’s a lot more on it but that is not what this article is about. Do get in touch with us if you seek to know more about the Advance 5S for your organization, teams, or even yourself.

IF YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT 5S IS:

For starters, understand what 1S is. The commonality between the VSC’s more sustainable and reformed way of doing 5S and conventional 5S is the first “S” – Sort.

1S = SORT

This, at its very basic level, means getting rid of everything that may be: extra, unwanted, not required, unusable, irrelevant, non-value adding. This is typically done in organizations to get rid of the clutter in the pursuit of higher efficiencies.

Today, however, we look at 1S from an entirely different perspective. What if Mother Nature were to do 1S and eliminate everything that is, in Her Divine opinion, unwanted, extra, irrelevant, unusable, non-value adding?

Below is a photo story from the current lockdown we find ourselves in. These never-before sights made us think what nature’s 1S would look like. Food for thought? Please share your interpretations.