The Impact of 5S Strategy on the Safety Climate & Productivity at Egyptian Garment Firms (Assembly Plants)

Abstract

5S is one of the lean manufacturing tools that helps organizations to improve the work environment. The philosophy of 5S interesting on eliminating waste and non-value activity which increases labour efficiency and work area safety. Although many articles stated the significant impact of implementing lean manufacturing in worker environment, non-quantifiable results were reported. In this article, the impact of the 5S event on the safety climate and productivity at the assembly plant of Egyptian garment firms was studied. The sample was divided into two groups based on 5S implementation. The Safety Climate Assessment Tool survey (SCAT) was used in measuring the perceptions of safety on a Likert-scale while three productivity metric was calculated. The result presented that 5S has a significant impact on 7 of 8 topics of safety climate. The management commitment & the priority of safety climate at Egyptian garment firms need to be developed while usage a no-blame approach to persuade people acting safely has to be increased. In the same context, the results assigned that productivity measures influenced by 5S event.