Housekeeping

Industrial housekeeping is one key to stabilizing a process. It involves more than just cleaning up an area. Housekeeping is the continual effort to reduce waste by keeping the work area in a clean, safe, and orderly state.

At ROI we advocate and train in the 5S's, a strategy invented and perfected in Japan.

• Seiri - Organization
  • Clearly distinguish between needed and unneeded, and get rid of what you do not need
• Seiton - Neatness
  • Establish a neat layout to allow for easy and immediate retrieval
• Seiso - Cleaning
  • Eliminate trash, filth and debris for a cleaner workplace. Inspection cleaning
• Seiketsu - Standardizing
  • A condition where everyone works to maintain and improve the first three S’s
• Shitsuke - Discipline
  • Doing the right things as a matter of course

Housekeeping is a strategy to improve the work area that uses visual communication and shared data . It eliminates waste and is an opportunity for employees to change their work area. It is not a clean up program, a means to coerce employees into doing more work, or unimportant or a waste of time. It is one of the foundations of the Improvement Hierarchy (go to the Daily Management section for an explanation of the Improvement Hierarchy). It is also the base of our Just-In-Time Processing Model.

Without a good foundation in Housekeeping, keeping a process stable and producing output within specification will be very difficult.