This house is no exception. The problem is, as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, I really have no excuse other than the children. So I’ll be taking on a new challenge over the next few days (with! pictures!). I’m going to organize my house by applying Lean Six Sigma Methods – 5S, Visual Controls, etc.

My goal is to spend 60-90 minutes in one area every day on a 5S activity and photograph it when I am done as the visual control piece. The visual controls will hopefully serve as checks for the children on whether their chores are done well enough. Wish me Luck!

First, I offer you the before pictures of our entertainment center area. Specifically, these photos are of the space where DVDs are shelved.

As you can see, the number of DVDs exceeds the available storage space to the point where DVDs are piled up on the floor making quite a mess. Messes drive me crazy. Did I mention that?

Now I would like to present the After photos. After I ordered these babies from Case Logic and put the DVDs in them. All of the grown up movies (rated PG-13 and up except for Harry Potter) are in one and all the kids movies are in the other. Each holds 96 discs so all of the DVDs in the house are now in one centralized location.

Now the DVD shelves look like this:

Notice that now all the video games in the house are also in a central location. We moved the consoles to the living room to gain control over how much time people spend playing video games. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have curbed our addiction (Sarge’s especially ) one bit.

Note: The small stack of DVDs visibly out of place in the photo is going to be given away. It is no longer on the entertainment center.

The end result is that our entertainment center area looks like this:

How would you score that on the improvement scale? I do need to make sure the PS2 Controllers are moved to the empty basket on the bottom shelf, but I think it looks much better. Your thoughts?

Another of my ongoing missions is to take Alton Brown’s advice and “BANISH THE UNITASKERS!” from the kitchen and elsewhere. So I leave you with the first of my banish or cherish polls:

I purchased this punchbowl at a garage sale. It is clear glass and includes 12 cups plus a ladle. I have had it at least two years and have never used it. When we entertain, we usually go with soda, etc. rather than punch, see? And I think that if we did ever serve punch or sangria or some such, a large pitcher with more functions would be just as useful. I have even seen some quite elegant plastic pitchers that would be more durable for our travels. On the other hand, it is quite pretty and I harbor many fantasies of neat little gatherings where it might possibly be useful some day. It is equally likely the Army movers will manage to break it into a million pieces on one of our many upcoming moves.

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