The application levels of 5s system in the garment enterprises in transition process to lean production

The aim of this research is to expose the relationship between 5S System and enterprise scales by determining which level classification, organization, cleanness, standardization and discipline phases of the 5S System that constitutes the first step for transition to the lean production are applied in the garment enterprises.Related with the aim of the research, descriptive methods have been used and the questionnaire technique has been used to collect the research data. The environment of the research has been constituted by the garment enterprises which have been members of TOBB and performing activities in Ankara, Bursa, Eskişehir, Tekirdağ and Konya. Small, medium and large scaled enterprises in these cities have been selected by the technique of random sampling.The material of the research has been formed with the data gathered from 100 enterprises, which were coincidentally selected within the garment enterprises and accepted to answer the questionnaire, and the resources obtained by the result of literature scanning about the subject.Numerical values and percentages of the data collected from this research have been calculated by analysing statistically in SPSS 15.0 Program. The statistical analysis of the data collected from the research has been made by transferring the values to the SPSS 15.0 Program. Numerical values and percentages related to the data have been presented in cross tables. To measure the statistical relationship between the scale variables of the enterprises and the variables of the 5S System, x² relation analysis has been used. The results of the analysis have been evaluated in P< 0.05 level.It has been exposed that small and medium scaled enterprises which participated in the questionnaire were insufficient to apply 5S system, the structure of large scales enterprises with regard to the physical working environment were more suitable to the system although they had some imperfection to apply this system.Key Words: Lean production, 5S, Garment