Increasingly, more companies are striving to keep their facilities clean, with tools and equipment organized and resources optimized. Although it requires time and effort to keep everything tidy and clean, it pays off in productivity.
As early as the 1950s, Toyota plants in Japan began developing the 5S methodology for order and cleanliness, a procedural method for organizing workplaces by eliminating unnecessary items, improving organization, and simplifying processes as much as possible.
The 5S comes from five Japanese words that summarize the five principles of the methodology: Sort (seiri), Set in order (seiton), Shine (seiso), Standardize (seiketsu), and Sustain (shitsuke).
Sorting aims to label to group, classify, and remove what is not useful. Order aims to improve efficiency in locating products and tools to be productive in their use. Cleaning aims to keep workspaces clean and in good condition. The goal of standardization is to reduce the number of variables and establish procedures so that everything is done the same way. Discipline aims to maintain these procedures over time, ensuring that order, cleanliness, and resource use are efficient.
The result of this methodology, once implemented in the factory, is an overall improvement in productivity, as well as in working conditions, which also leads to greater satisfaction among people, the longer they work applying the methodology based on order and cleanliness.
It is important that company resources are used productively, minimizing time wastage as much as possible.
