The 5S system is a visual workplace system that promotes safety, efficiency and teamwork while making abnormalities visible.  The system is often confused as a cleaning method however the purpose of 5S is in fact to  eliminate waste and create a safe working environment that supports TPM.  The 5 major stages of 5S are:
1. Sort
2. Set in Order
3. Shine
4. Standardize
​5. Sustain

  Demand is an economic principle that describes a consumer's desire or willingness for a specific good or service. Holding all other factors constant, an increase in the price of a good or service will decrease demand, and vice versa.  Demand can also be defined as a quantity of a commodity or service which is either wanted or needed.

  Efficiency is the ratio of actual work done (Output) compared to a standard (Output expected).

  The 5 core principles of a Lean Organization were first written about in a book entitled: Lean Thinking by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones.  The 5 core principles are widely accepted as a means implementing and establishing a lean organization.  The 5 core principles have been adapted from the 5 original principles that were defined by Dr. Womack and Daniel T. Jones:

1. Define Value from the Customer's Perspective - This is where you would specify what creates value from a customer's point of view.  A common way of doing this is by asking "what is my customer willing to pay for?"
2. ​See the Value Stream - Here you identify all of the steps contained within the entire value stream, this can be done many different ways. 
3. Make it flow - The goal here is to make customer value flow through the value stream as efficiently and effectively as possible.  That means creating customer value and eliminating anything that is considered waste.  
4. Make Only what is considered Value. - This principle tells us to only produce what the customer is creating a demand for.  In other words what they are pulling for.  This principle also tells us that along with making only what the customer is pulling for we should make what the customer is pulling for in the correct quantity, just-in-time and in the optimum quality.
5. Get a little better, Pursuit Perfection - Always strive for perfection by continuously improving and removing any type of waste.  

​  See Overprocessing Waste.

  A Kaizen blitz is a rapid improvement event.  It is designed to make a fast improvement or impact to an opportunity or an issue.  A blitz will usually take place over a 1 to 5 day period, but could be as quick as a few seconds.  This gives teams an opportunity to make rapid, quick improvements.  A kaizen blitz may follow the 4 steps outlined in the PDCA cycle:

1. Plan the event.
2. Do the blitz.
3. Check or study the results of the blitz.
4. Act on any adjustments, activities or actions that may have been discovered in checking and studying to fully implement the agreed upon blitz objectives.

  A Gantt Chart is one of the most common tools used in project management.  The Gantt Chart documents a schedule of activities for a team or individual to execute to.  The left side of the chart typically documents the activities while the bars you see in the middle show a start date and the amount of time each activity will take.  Gantt Charts made in Google Sheets are suitable for small to midsize projects, however large scale project plans typically use other forms of software such as Gantter.

  A moving average is a statistical technique that can be used to get a better understanding of the trends within a (X) number of periods or a data set.  It does this by gathering the average of a defined subset within a series of numbers. 

 Non-Value added activities are any activities that add no value to the product or the service.  Non-value added activities do not transform the product, process or service, nobody is willing to pay for the activity or they are not performed correctly the first time through.   Non-value added activities take up about 85% of the Value Stream in organizations.  For more information on how to identify and remove non-value from your organization enroll in our course on waste.

  Quantitative data is data that can be verified and quantified using numbers.  Quantitative data is more defining than qualitative data which is often used as a description.