August 17, 2007 3:48 PM

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5S in the Electronic World
By Marcie MacRae

A question was recently posted on Gemba Research’s Blog Panta Rei. “I am looking for a standard routine for cleaning up servers, especially shared diskspace.” Coincidently, my company just went through a red tagging event on our server.

It is my belief that the best way to go about this is the same way you would go about a 5S event in your storage room.

Before you do anything make sure that you “Insist on giving people training about kaizen and the 7 types of waste before doing 5S with them. If 5S doesn't make sense to them, they will oppose it.”

Then, the main difference is I don’t have a Red Tag that I attach to the items I sort out. So, create a space that you can put all of your red tagged items. My space is a folder that I named “07 Red Tagged Items”. I name this with a “0” to start so that it shows up as the first file when someone opens the share disk area.

Then, 5S:

SORT: Take a couple of hours and start going through all of your folders. Move all the unnecessary, duplicate and old files and folders to the designated place. My standard work is to put the view of the folders on Details so I can see the date the last time the file was used. Almost everything on your server should be something that is used on a regular basis, just like in your office or shop floor. If it hasn’t been used in the last 6-12 months, it is most likely not needed, or even worse, not updated.

STRAIGHTEN: Make your files visible by pulling files to higher levels and getting rid of redundant folders or unnecessary folders. The farther down you have to go to get to a file the more time and motion you are wasting while in this 5S event, and the more searching that is needed while you are working a typical day. Also the farther down they are the harder it will be to see what needs to get sorted out.

Through sorting and straightening you have most likely found things that are basically trash, empty folders or files that are duplicates or old versions. Delete what you know is useless, put the rest that seem outdated or useless in the red tagged folder.

SWEEP: You can’t really sweep, or dust something electronic, though you can clean it. Delete un-needed items, organize items you found, and finally send out a message to all who use this disk space, something like this:

Files and folders on our server older than 2006 have been red tagged. (Look for '07 Red Tagged Folder')
Please move these files to a RED TAG HOLD folder if you want them saved.
All tagged items not saved will be moved to offsite place on September 10, 2007.
Please confirm that you have read this message.

STANDARDIZE: Go back and make some rules on your server. You may be able to make it so people can’t create folders inside folders – keeping the areas that are harder to see down to a minimum.

SELF-DISCIPLINE: Creating standard work for this is probably the best way to make sure that you spend as little time as possible. The fact is you will have to do this more than once. I try to do it at least once a year. I set myself reminders to do so. As you do this you will find ways that will help you better sustain the improvement. The first time is always the hardest, but as you continue to do this process you lead by example and people will start to follow.