In order to keep our brand promise – reliability – we have to make sure everything in our company works well and is in order. That is why we follow the 5S methodology here at Steelo.

Keeping things in order also means that we need to often declutter and clean our workplace. There are 5S cleaning stations located throughout our workshop, enabling our team to keep the workplace tidy at all times.

All cleaning tools are marked on board to avoid misplacing any of them. Once someone has finished with his task, he has to put the tool back on its place, so the next person will have no problem locating the tool when needed.

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5S system

5S represents Japanese words that describe the steps of a workplace organization process. English equivalent words are shown in parenthesis

1. Seiri (Sort)
2. Seiton (Straighten, Set)
3. Seiso (Shine, Sweep)
4. Seiketsu (Standardize)
5. Shitsuke (Sustain)

In simple terms, the five S methodology helps a workplace remove items that are no longer needed (sort), organize the items to optimize efficiency and flow (straighten), clean the area in order to more easily identify problems (shine), implement color coding and labels to stay consistent with other areas (standardize) and develop behaviors that keep the workplace organized over the long term (sustain).