Information & Technology Services: Benchroom 5S

The Challenge

The Information & Technology Services Department (ITS) is the central nervous system of the City of Bloomington. The ITS team manages and provides technical support to all city departments & develops software tools for public use. The department monitors over 680 workstations for hundreds of city staff members at 40+ sites, including critical systems at Police, Fire, and Utilities departments. That’s not all, the ITS team also manages Digital Equity grants, surplus donation processes, and the Bloomington fiber network initiative. 

With all these responsibilities and more, you can imagine that this department sees a TON of technology come through its doors! Just like any workplace, that constant shuffling of inventory can lead to clutter and confusion. ITS had an excess amount of inventory, outdated equipment, missing or misplaced items, and potential safety hazards. 

In order to move equipment out of the department, it isn’t as simple as throwing it in the trash; equipment needs to be wiped of all data and adhere to an auditable process for either being donated or recycled.

The “bench room” that stored all the equipment ready to be decommissioned also became a magnet for anything that didn’t have an official “home” and was subject to TWO floods in 2020 and 2021. The room lost its way and became congested to the point that the original intent of the room - to decommission equipment in preparation for recycling or donation - became difficult. 

The team at ITS asked themselves… shouldn’t there be a better way to organize all this stuff? 

The Idea

As part of the Office of Innovation’s focus to improve current processes, Director of Innovation, Devta Kidd, introduced the ITS team to the Lean Process Improvement tool called “5S”.

Like many  Lean process improvement tools, the 5S system disrupts the status quo to help folks see things that are otherwise not obvious. The 5 steps in the improvement system are Sort, Shine, Set in order, Standardize, and Sustain. 

• The group of 6 (Kelly Murphy, Linda Gilliland, Victoria Jones, Cass DeHart, Stephen Hudson, Jermiah Junken) started by removing everything from the space and cleaned it; these two steps help them see the raw potential of the space. 
• Next, they defined the purpose of the space to help them determine what would be “in” and what would need another home. 
• Now knowing what belonged in that space, they set it up in a way that made the decommissioning process work according to an efficient flow. 
• They then labeled and tagged where things go to minimize the potential for things to get out of place. 
• Finally, they developed a regular audit to check to make sure things were working well and to break the cycle of unwanted things collecting in the area. 

The Cost

Implementing a 5S process takes a minimum of 1 full day of staff time to get started. This team found that they needed to spend at least a dozen more hours sorting through piles of cables and old equipment that had been lumped together. This team also spent a few hundred dollars on some bins and cabinets and created laminated signage to help keep things organized, however, 5S does not typically require significant up-front investment. 

The Benefit 

As a result of their efforts, this team found extra inventory of which they were unaware that they will now not need to purchase again, they have reclaimed a space for equipment decommissioning and can continue this work, and they have a shared system for keeping the space tidy. 

Additionally, the team identified significant bottlenecks in the workflows for moving equipment out of the department through recycling or donation that they are using a second Lean Process Improvement method - business process mapping - to resolve.  

Metadata

Department(s): Information & Technology Services

Department Point(s) of Contact: Kelly Murphy, Linda Gilliland, Victoria Jones, Cass DeHart, Stephen Hudson, Jermiah Junken, Rick Dietz

Partner(s): 

Partner Point(s) of Contact: 

Type of Innovation: Process Improvement

Date Implemented: 2023