The ‘Five S’ System for Facility Safety
How these straightforward and easy-to-implement solutions can keep your facility safe and efficient.
- By Jonathan Wells
- Sep 06, 2023
How easy is it for your employees to properly store equipment after they use it? If it’s not easy — for example, if there’s always clutter around the wall attachments where extension ladders are meant to be secured — at least some of the team will just lean them against the wall.
At one auto dealership I worked with, that’s exactly what happened. An extension ladder was leaning against a wall, and when an employee went to replace an air hose, he knocked the ladder down and ended up needing 17 stitches.
So how can you create a workplace where proper safety behavior is the default? And how can you do that not only when it comes to storing ladders but also cleaning spills, stacking equipment, replacing hoses, and so on?
In my experience, the Five S system is about the best out there. In this piece, I’ll explain how the Five S system (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) works and how it can boost the efficiency and bottom line of any workplace under OSHA’s purview.
1. Sort: Review Everything in Your Workplace
Your goal in the “sort” step is to inspect everything in your facility (equipment, tools, furniture, machines, materials) with the goal of identifying which things you need and which you don’t. For some things — like the equipment you use daily — the answer will be obvious. For things used less often, ask the following questions:
- What is this item’s purpose?
- When did we last use it?
- How often do we use it?
- Does it truly need to be here?
This article originally appeared in the September 2023 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.