lean manufacturing please help

common sense brigade

Hi, basically my comapny has adopted the Japenese 5's system in the office. I am all for lean manufacturing and being tidy. It totally makes things more efficent. However we have been told to remove personal photographs from our desk. I have one framed picture of my daughter on my desk. it comforts me to have it there. I cannot see how removing it will raise my morale. Everyone else in office has done as they were told. Not because they agree but because they dont want confrontation from management. I have not removed my picture. I know im fighting a loosing battle. But I feel that many of the problems we face as a country comes from hanging our heads and following the Staus Quo. We have also been told we cannot decorate the office for christmas this year. Does anybody know the legalities of what might happen to me if I refuse to remove my photo? I do love my job and the company in every other way. But this is really bugging me.

zig

I dont see a problem with using Lean processes in a work place as it does improve efficiency, but my experience of it is they took it WAAYYY too far, to the point where even the light switch had a label above it saying "Light switch", you even had a place where you had to leave the ruler, stapler,etc,actual outlined areas on the table(not that people used it).

Anyway personally I think you should leave it there until its said to you again. If it is said again, its not worth getting in trouble over. As soon as they brought it in they probably did a clean sweep, and got rid of everything including family pictures, but i wont be surprised if things balance off a bit and you start to see pictures coming back up.

Gmol

I agree that it does seem way too severe but if them the rulles them the rules. If you have a suggestion box maybe post a suggestion saying one peice of personalisation might improve morale of staff & improve efficiency. Actually wait 6 months and get your boss to think it was their idea and you'll be sorted

x in the city

Gmol wrote: »

I agree that it does seem way too severe but if them the rulles them the rules. If you have a suggestion box maybe post a suggestion saying one peice of personalisation might improve morale of staff & improve efficiency. Actually wait 6 months and get your boss to think it was their idea and you'll be sorted

that sort of stuff is ridiculous

'place ruler here' 'toilet handle here >.<' 'walk this way >>>>>' 'sellotape in here'

....yawnnnnn

common sense brigade

thing is we did suggest that we be allowed one personal item and we were shot down. they went so far as to say if they let one person have a picture then someone else might want a mass card. i was shocked that anybody could be offended by an employee keeping a mass card at their desk. it seems so cold and corporate. they did a clean sweep but are auditing our area once a mth. if you have a personal item your group gets marked down. groups with high marks get 'prizes'. im insulted by this also as it seems a way to control people. does anyone know legally would i be fired if i kept up my mini protest. the rest of people agree with me but dont want the hassle of complaining. we always did decorations at christmas time and we are not allowed this year either. i feel they want us to be like robots

zig

@x in the city
believe me, most big companies are gonna start taking in on, as annoying as it is, it means your never looking for anything, nothings every in your way, everything is more organised, but we were still allowed pictures or whatever up, thats really taking the piss.

common sense brigade

also i completely agree with beiong tidy. im all for it on that score. just feel sad that we cant have our pictures

zig

common sense brigade wrote: »

thing is we did suggest that we be allowed one personal item and we were shot down. they went so far as to say if they let one person have a picture then someone else might want a mass card. i was shocked that anybody could be offended by an employee keeping a mass card at their desk. it seems so cold and corporate. they did a clean sweep but are auditing our area once a mth. if you have a personal item your group gets marked down. groups with high marks get 'prizes'. im insulted by this also as it seems a way to control people. does anyone know legally would i be fired if i kept up my mini protest. the rest of people agree with me but dont want the hassle of complaining. we always did decorations at christmas time and we are not allowed this year either. i feel they want us to be like robots

This is the way companies are going, and its more and more the reason I want to work for myself. Its complete bullsh1t, we had that score system as well, it was out of 18 every evening, but funny we 'mysteriously' got 18 every time. Thats because we were doing our own audits.

Tbh, im not sure is it worth getting yourself into big trouble over. You'll just become a headache for them, and you'll begin to hate the place more and more. By all means try it, but I wouldnt let it get to a stage where you can lose your job.

BeeDI

Get yourself a nice picture of Brian Cowen. Surely the company won't insist on the removal of our great leader's mug shot .... AND .... it too is quite comforting to look at. Inspiring almost.

Some12

It's a very severe policy but I can understand why. It's easier to tell everyone "No personal items allowed in sight" rather than walking around to every desk and saying "That's ok but that's not"

The latter would cause uproar.

In a previous position, I was touring a company in the UK due to problems with products and was brought to the QA Engineers desk to discuss the quality issues.

A large Playboy calander was on his desk and it became quite clear why his eye had drifted off quality...

gollem_1975

common sense brigade wrote: »

Hi, basically my comapny has adopted the Japenese 5's system in the office. I am all for lean manufacturing and being tidy. It totally makes things more efficent. However we have been told to remove personal photographs from our desk. I have one framed picture of my daughter on my desk. it comforts me to have it there. I cannot see how removing it will raise my morale. Everyone else in office has done as they were told. Not because they agree but because they dont want confrontation from management. I have not removed my picture. I know im fighting a loosing battle. But I feel that many of the problems we face as a country comes from hanging our heads and following the Staus Quo. We have also been told we cannot decorate the office for christmas this year. Does anybody know the legalities of what might happen to me if I refuse to remove my photo? I do love my job and the company in every other way. But this is really bugging me.

looking at it another way you could be seen as the one hankering for "the status quo" by not changing your ways ( they are trying a system that has been empirically proven to boost productivity by helping employees to focus on the job in hand )

If I was you I would have a digitised picture of your daughter as my desktop background ( also referred to as "wallpaper" )

assuming that you are a version of windows from XP upwards simply right click
on the relevant image and select the "set as background" option.

Rashers23

zig wrote: »

my experience of it is they took it WAAYYY too far, to the point where even the light switch had a label above it saying "Light switch", you even had a place where you had to leave the ruler, stapler,etc,actual outlined areas on the table(not that people used it).

We must work in the same company!:)

From my experience, people see it as a punishment to have their areas 5S'd as in my workplace it was to be implemented across the board, however all the managers and some whole departments managed to escape the scourge of blue tape.
I agree that the OP should leave the photo out until asked otherwise.

Mike Strutter

Thats not lean manufacturing

Thats bullsh!t !

Even Toyota execs keep pics on their desks

It sounds like your company are trying to find ways to make you all feel crap in the hope that a load of you will leave.

HellFireClub

Sounds like you are working in a commune OP. I used to work in a place like that, if you are not happy where you are then my advice to you is to leave your job, life is too short to be stuck in a commune having your head filled with corporate nonsense and the soul sucked out of you... Throw your ID at your manager and reclaim your sense of self is my advice...

gollem_1975

(assuming they are serious posts ) I can't agree with the above 2 posters.

a good job that pays a wage in this day and age is not worth losing over whether you can have a picture of a family member on your desk or not imo.

BopNiblets

Get an even larger picture of your daughter!
Or a tattoo of her on your face!
Or a mousepad with her picture, or your desktop wallpaper!

These are joke answers btw, mostly.

wylo

gollem_1975 wrote: »

(assuming they are serious posts ) I can't agree with the above 2 posters.

a good job that pays a wage in this day and age is not worth losing over whether you can have a picture of a family member on your desk or not imo.

The feeling of being happy with your life is not worth losing over a sh1tty job.

gollem_1975

wylo wrote: »

The feeling of being happy with your life is not worth losing over a sh1tty job.

ffs how is that relevant to the OP.

OP wrote:

Hi, basically my comapny has adopted the Japenese 5's system in the office. I am all for lean manufacturing and being tidy. It totally makes things more efficent. However we have been told to remove personal photographs from our desk. I have one framed picture of my daughter on my desk. it comforts me to have it there. I cannot see how removing it will raise my morale. Everyone else in office has done as they were told. Not because they agree but because they dont want confrontation from management. I have not removed my picture. I know im fighting a loosing battle. But I feel that many of the problems we face as a country comes from hanging our heads and following the Staus Quo. We have also been told we cannot decorate the office for christmas this year. Does anybody know the legalities of what might happen to me if I refuse to remove my photo? I do love my job and the company in every other way. But this is really bugging me.

It may be easy to walk away from a job (which incidentally the OP says s/he loves) when you are single and fancy free.

But if you were to quit your job over not having a picture of the daughter who you are working to support on your desk thats just biting your nose off to spite your face!

amdublin

You have your actual daughter at home op, I am sure you can get through the day without needing a photo of on your desk. Take it down for gods sake. You're a big girl/boy
now.

InchicoreDude

This is taking too far. One of the key aspects to lean thinking is employee respect and the approach at your company seems to be ignoring it. I would suggest that there is a standardised place at each desk for personalised items. This will allow them to keep to the principles of lean as well as them ensuring employee happiness.

The problem with lean is that people dont know when to stop. Yes, it is a neverending process but when you run out of good ideas of how to apply lean, that does not mean that you start applying bad ideas (Which this is).

There are many studies written on lean. I am sure it would be easy to get a study whereby it was proven that applying lean to this degree had a poor effect. Maybe you could consider finding something like this and showing it to the lean team at your company...

AntiRip

I thought this 5S crap was only in my last job! Signs all over the place saying 'think before you dump' and crap like this. It actually went so far as one day I sat in front of somebody's computer to fix something and I was told to clean the dirt/dust around the chair as 5S. Your name badge had to be 5cm from your left shoulder, we then had to wear different color caps to identify all the ranks. F*cking soul destroying. The funny thing is that the stricter this thing goes the more disobedient people become. Trying to adopt Japanese work ethic. Packed it in last year after 12 years and returned to college. Life's too short

common sense brigade

Thanx for everybodies advice. I will defo remove the photo rather than risk my job. I just wanted to know if anyone knew legally my position. We are being audited this week so i want to have all the facts and I want to say my point of view in a mature manner to the committee at the audit. I will remove my photo then as I know they wont back down. But at least I will have tried to have a voice and an opinion on this issue. Still think lean is brilliant but just that removing a photo is a step too far. we are not allowed have a mousemat or anything like that. our desk must be completely blank except for keyboard, mouse, phone and two black trays. nothing else is allowed. black partition walls. its just a bit grim.we suggested 1 personal item in a designated area of the desk and were shot down.

wclarke20

5S is actually a very good concept if its implemented properly and with a bit of common sense. Its about making your job easier by having everything close by and knowing where to find stuff.
Its central theme is identifying and eliminating waste.

I wonder about the so called lean specialists in some organisations. A picture is not going to make a person less efficient.
I suspect the people who brought this in do not understand the bigger picture of lean concepts

InchicoreDude

I suspect the people who brought this in do not understand the bigger picture of lean concepts

+1

You really gotta wonder how these people end up working in lean teams. Madness...