Our 5S Cleaning Stations are so much more than simple tools to help with workplace hygiene, though they are excellent at that! We believe that 5S Cleaning Stations one of the absolutely essential tools that can truly sustain the 5S programme in any business, regardless of size, or structure – and especially if you’ve not managed to sustain a 5S programme before!
5S Cleaning Stations or ‘Hygiene Stations’ as they’re sometimes known, are without a doubt our most popular shadow boards here at Clarity and are a very simple solution to what could be a complex business challenge. At their heart, 5S Cleaning Stations are tool shadow boards that offer a central point for essential cleaning equipment to be stored – walk into any Lean manufacturing, production or service business and you are sure to come across more than one Tool Shadow Board!
Shadow boards ensure that tools are stored visibly and it’s instantly obvious if something has not been put back after it’s been used. This saves wasted time looking for tools that have been misplaced – even time searching around an individual cell looking for a specific tool can add up to a huge amount of waste over the course of a week, month, year…etc.
In fact, we have worked with a business who made the simple change from using an unorganised toolbox, filled with loose equipment, to a Clarity Tool Shadow Board and slashed the time it took to search for equipment.
Our clients come to us for help with cleaning stations at every stage of the 5S Journey. Cleaning Stations make an excellent starting point as they are highly visible and our designers are skilled at producing attractive eye-catching graphics for them to engage the team, and they are also ideal for reigniting a programme that is losing steam. Many organisations have tried 5S in the past but all-too-often find themselves stuck in the cycle of putting effort into 5S but finding that it’s not sticking – the teams aren’t engaged and the hard work that you’re putting into developing a strategy for 5S engagement is being lost to culture (there’s a famous phrase about that!).
What’s more, many other’s opt for ‘homemade’ visual management ‘solutions’, such as homemade 5S cleaning stations… and that’s fine, you have to start somewhere! However, we have proved over and over again that companies begin to get real ownership from their staff and genuine improvements when they are confident to move away from the homemade version, to professional, consistent visual management.
Take a look at the picture below – the team knew that the homemade cleaning station they devised was not going to be a long-term solution. However, it also failed to engage the team members who needed to use the equipment in the short-term because it simply didn’t look the part – for 5S to be effective you need to make sure to get the final “S” right to set you up for future success…
The second picture above shows the difference Clarity made!
We were able to help the team see that for their 5S programme to be effective, they needed a workplace to be proud of! Our 5S Cleaning Stations are the ideal platform to ensure that the practical considerations of having equipment available where it’s needed, when it’s needed, are taken care of. But, as important was ensuring that the solution helped to promote a culture of ownership within each workplace – each and every member of the team had to feel accountable for keeping their area tidy, and to be responsible for making sure that the tools were put back after use so that they could be used by other members of the team.
Here at Clarity Visual Management, we consult with clients both far and wide about how they can use visual management to achieve their goals, exceed their targets and make financial savings which would otherwise be lost to waste. We work with our clients to create a bespoke strategy that ensures visual management is set up for success before providing specific, high-quality Lean products to sustain the visual management programme and make Lean work in the organisation long-term.
You can read more about the work we’ve undertaken with our clients by browsing through our Visual Management Case Studies.
Download our ‘Introduction to Clarity Visual Management’ if you’re unfamiliar with Clarity and want to learn a little more about our products and services.
Get in touch and speak with a Visual Management Specialist to answer any questions you may have on our products, consultancy or business.
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Jackson Way, Melton, HU14 3HJ
01482 296451
info@clarityvm.com
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