Implementation of a 5S Project to Improve Office Layout and Functionality in a Small Consulting Firm

Abstract

Planning is key to improve and maintain daily operations on an office environment, making it a challenge sometimes for small companies to accustom to this. Lack of organization and planning leads to poor usage of time, resources and can eventually lead to losses. This project focuses on proving small companies can obtain benefits when applying lean and six sigma tools. For the execution of this project, 2 issues were targeted: organizing the office and the implementation of a billings process. For the first issue, a 5S project was executed for 6 days. Items were sorted, organized and have now a designated place. To aid in the purchase and inventory, an inventory list was created. Now the company knows what items has, when to purchase and can track its administrative expenses easily. For the second issue, a short-term solution was applied, which was creating an invoice template. With the implementations of these simple tools, employees now spend 50% less time preparing an invoice. Employees are now aware of how they spend their time, manifesting the continuation of this project on other areas. Goals for this project were fulfilled and continuation of the same was highly requested and recommended. This project proves small companies can benefit from lean and six sigma tools with a minimal investment. Key Terms - 5S, Billing Process, Lean, Office Environment, Planning, Six Sigma, Small Companies, Template.