Implementing a 5S Program

By Andrea Hill

Imagine for a moment that you are stepping into a jewelry manufacturing operation. The floors are gleaming. There are no boxes or miscellaneous items on the floor around the edges of the room. There is no noticeable dust on any inventory shelf or work surface. And the work surfaces! They are clear except for the immediate work in progress. The only tools on each bench are those being used, which are kept in tool caddies close at hand. You observe that the workbenches appear to be individually smaller than the benches in your own operation, yet each worker seems to have more work space.