6S Success!

Making Information a Part of the Home

Ideally, the standards identified during a 6S event should be integrated into how the family enjoys and maintains the home.  Two primary means of doing this within a household is to create a 6S Housekeeping and Organization Guide and using visual controls when appropriate.

We’ve mentioned the 6S Housekeeping and Organization Guide so let’s start by providing ours for review.  The plan with our guide is to provide one page summaries of each area of the house where we have performed 6S activities.  The outline of the one page summary looks like this:

6S Housekeeping and Organization Guide – Klingdom Living Room

Target Area Name	Living Room
Last 6S Audit Date	1/13/2010
Last 6S Audit Score	1.2
Previous Score	NA
Next Scheduled Audit	1/31/2010
Last 6S Event Date	1/13/2010
Next Scheduled Event	1/15/2011
Desired State Photo
Area Primary Purpose(s)	Family Entertainment Media Enjoyment Social Gathering
Key Activities	Watch Movies and other Media Watch Cable Television Listen to Music Play Video Games Visit with Friends Personal Computing Reading
Necessary Items	Sony 50 Television with Stand Comcast Cable Box Apple TV Wii Laptop Computers Books DVDs and Video Games
Area Housekeeping and Organization Standards	Wipe down the TV every Friday! Never store or place Discs, DVD cases or Video Game cases on entertainment area! Replace Discs in the appropriate case and return to storage immediately after using. Pull out the TV and sweep once a month. Enforce a “No Fingers on the TV” policy. Return all video game accessories to the common video game storage areas. Remove items from under couch and ottoman once a month Vacuum inside couch once every 3 months Store only 1-6 pairs of shoes at the entryway.
Necessary Cleaning Items	Moist Dusting Cloth (stored in kitchen) Broom (stored in kitchen) Dust Pan (stored in kitchen)
Storage Standards	Store Video Game Peripherals with Rock Band Drums Organize Video Games Peripherals in one basket Store DVDs in alphabetical order Store only 1-3 toys in the bookshelf area Store laptops on bottom shelf when not in use Store only up to 20 current and interesting books on bookshelf

I am hoping we might be able to use something like this when house guests visit or if we do a house swap next year and move to France for a while.  It definitely helps the family stay focused on what’s important in terms of organization and housekeeping.  So one day we will have an entire guide for the home.

The other method of making information a part of the home is the use of visual controls.  Visual controls play a vital role in housekeeping and organization.  Visual controls ensure that the identified standards documented during your 6S event are followed into the future.  It’s important that everyone understands the standards and how to meet those standards.  Think of it as your Visual Home.

Everyone is responsible for the implementation of visual controls.  Whether it be labeling a personal storage area or working with the entire house to organize and label a major storage area, everyone should be familiar with the power of visual controls.  You don’t need to go overboard with visual controls by labeling every little thing in your home.  It is a good however to identify certain control points in the home that would benefit from visual controls.

The idea with visual controls in the home is that anybody can understand at a glance the primary purpose and layout of an area.  Before you start creating all kinds of visual controls, first decide on what it is you would like to control – what’s important based on the primary purpose and common issues in the area.  Control points should be linked to storage standards.  So if you look above in the Living Room Housekeeping and Organization example you can see that DVDs are too be stored in alphabetical order.  One thing we thought of doing was putting a little label above the DVD shelf that states that face.  We have babysitters and houseguests who may want to quickly locate a movie.  This label essentially would simplify the task of searching for media.  These control points are usually common areas – places where lots of people use the area – like supply areas, kitchens, bathrooms, storage, etc.

We are still brainstorming visual controls options, but we know that anything we implement should help us accomplish the following:

• Find anything in the living room in less than 10 seconds
• Keep clutter at a minimum
• Fully enjoy the primary purpose of the area
• Everybody knows what’s important in the area and how to organize and clean

We’re planning a big living room 6S event to finalize all the improvements we’ve made and address a few final issues.  We’re also planning on creating video of the event so you can watch 6S Success in action!

Let us know if you want to virtually participate in our Living Room 6S Event!  We can get you all the forms and activities you need in advance!

Posted in 01 - Principles of 6S, 06 - 6S Standardize Activities, 07 - 6S Sustain Activities 6S, Housekeeping and Organization Guide, Visual Controls

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