2S3S activities enter their fourth year – Over 100 improvements per year are ongoing at three business sites

This year marks the fourth year of our company-wide 2S3S activities, which are workplace improvement activities based on “Seiri/Seiton” and “3Tei” (fixed position, fixed product, and fixed quantity). The three business sites, the Head Office (Tokyo), the West Japan Branch (Osaka), and the Monozukuri Center (Saitama), continue to implement site-led improvements.
Approximately 150 improvements are made each year, all of which are documented with before and after photos. Improvement cases are shared on the company intranet, and knowledge is circulated so that on-site innovations can be used as hints for the next improvement.

Etsuo Kondo, who assumed the position of president on February 20, told all employees in his inaugural address, “I want you to work creatively.
The 2S3S activities are the very foundation for this, and can be called the “quiet power” that supports creativity. The 2S/3S activities are the “quiet power” that supports creativity.
When the environment is prepared, waste and stress are reduced, and a margin for thought and action is created. Such a state is the starting point for creative work.

Furthermore, our 2S3S activities are also a practice of the “SECI Spiral (Knowledge Creation Theory),” in which individual awareness is sublimated into organizational knowledge.
For example, the process of sharing knowledge with colleagues (collaboration), recording and visualizing it as improvement proposals (manifestation), disseminating it to other departments via the intranet (consolidation), and establishing it as a habit (internalization) is the very flow of knowledge being created, nurtured, and returned to the organization. This is the very flow in which knowledge is born, nurtured, and returned to the organization.

The 2S3S activities are also an indispensable foundation for our philosophy of “creating beautiful facades.
The 2S3D activities nurture the “sense of beauty in the invisible” and help the philosophy of façade creation take root in the work site. The 2S3Tei activity is also an activity to nurture the “aesthetic sense of the invisible parts” and to make the philosophy of facade creation take root in the workplace.

Number of Improvements by Year
FY2022: 63 cases
FY2023: 156 cases
FY2024: 172 cases