Toolroom technicians maintaining 140 moulds spent 52 minutes a day searching for tools, spares and information. A 5S program cut that to 9 minutes, reduced mould repair time by 1.5 hours and was still holding six months later.
Key numbers
A moulding plant's toolroom looked like many others: benches covered with tools, drawers of unlabelled spare parts, drawings in a filing cabinet that nobody quite trusted, and three pallets in the corner that everyone had stopped noticing. The technicians were skilled and busy. They were also spending a surprising amount of their day looking for things.
The situation
The toolroom maintained 140 moulds. When a tool came off a press for repair, speed mattered: every hour the mould was out of production cost output. Average mould repair time was 6.4 hours, and production frequently complained about waiting for tools.
What the data showed
The team recorded how technicians spent their time over two weeks.
Each technician spent around 52 minutes a day searching for tools, searching for spare parts, waiting for information or cleaning up. Searching for tools alone took 24 minutes, and spares another 17. Across the team, that was several hours a day of skilled time producing nothing.
What changed
The program followed the 5S steps, with the toolroom team designing every change:
- Sort: a red-tag exercise removed three pallets of obsolete parts and tools, with anything uncertain held in a quarantine area for a month before disposal.
- Set in order: shadow boards and labelled drawers for every tool, arranged by frequency of use. Spare parts stored by mould number, with minimum levels and reorder cards.
- Shine: cleaning built into the end of each repair, with inspection of benches and equipment.
- Standardise: photos of the standard layout posted in each area.
- Sustain: a short weekly 5S audit reviewed by the toolroom manager, with results displayed.
The approach followed the principles in 5S that lasts: purpose first, owned by the people who work there, and audited briefly and often.
Results
Search time fell from 52 to 9 minutes per technician per day. The 5S audit score rose from 38% to 86%. Average mould repair time dropped from 6.4 to 4.9 hours, because technicians had what they needed at hand. Six months later, audit scores were still above 80%.
Why it lasted
The purpose was clear from the start: faster repairs and less frustration. The technicians designed the layout, so it suited the way they worked. And the weekly audit took only a few minutes, so it kept happening.
Lessons for your operation
- Measure search time before starting 5S. It builds the case and shows the result.
- Red-tagging releases space and reveals how much is never used.
- Store spares by the asset they belong to, with minimum levels, so they are there when needed.
- Short, frequent audits by the area's own manager sustain 5S better than long, rare ones.
