Let’s review what I’ve written in the last two posts. We started with cleaning and clearing up all the mess and discarding away all unwanted materials and junks that were left unnoticed for sometimes. This action would clear up some places which can be utilized later for value added purposes. Having done the cleaning and clearing, the next on going activity is to arrange the essential items that left behind in a manner that would clear up our daily activities towards attaining high efficiency. Tagging and classifying these items is a good practice that must be carried out and maintained in order to strive for continuous improvements.
In almost all human activities, getting things done for short period of time is easy but over time our attentions could swerve in other directions and things would gradually return to situation that started off in the beginning. Once this happened, it’s just impossible to recover the time and money that was wasted away. We can't afford to treat these activities like periodic or seasonal carnivals where the activities are only expected to last about a week or one month where the level of enthusiasm was high. The fact that we are so accustomed to this type of life makes us slack in up keeping or maintaining a constant level of concentration over time. Without any doubt, maintaining the orderly arrangement of materials in our workplace for as long as we want it to be is indeed difficult; that’s why in the Japanese kaizen (continuous improvement) of 5S the third step of shining up is simple and vital and acts as a stepping stone towards the more difficult part which is maintaining and making it a part of our daily lives. I will write about it in the oncoming post.
Shining up your working place is a very simple and straight forward act, and yet it being left undone may be because it is too simple or its trivialness is a good excuse for postponement. If you are a person who is very particular about neatness and tidiness, it’ll be good for you to keep up this habit and not be influenced by others who despise it. You can lead the way for your team members to emulate good working practices. Once your habits becomes imbedded and followed by your co-workers you can be proud that you’ve changed the lives of your friends to be more positive towards their work places. The results will be reflected in reducing amount of money incurred by these work places and the income amount will steadily increase.
About 10 years ago, in Japan while going on tour to the historic city of Kyoto, I observed that the drivers of ‘kanko’ (tourists) buses dusted the body of their busses with long feather dusters, some as tall as the drivers themselves, while waiting for their passengers to return to the buses. Practically all the drivers, regardless from what company they belong to, did that routine while waiting for the group of tourists to return from their tour rounds. This acts of dusting entire body of the buses really impressed me. I’m sure that the acts of dusting the buses are still going on until to day. This simple act of keeping their buses shining is important for three reasons. First, is to keep on working and be productive while waiting for their passengers to return in about 30 minutes. Second, the comparatively higher level of quality consciousness of the general public in Japan demands the drivers to maintain a higher standard of services which include the best appearance of the buses all the time. Third, the drivers being responsible employees from their respective ‘kanko’ bus companies must up held the name of their companies, thus leaving the logo or the name of their companies hidden under the accumulated dust would reflect the lazy or poor attitude of the employees. Hence, by keeping the logo or name of their companies under the dust would be committing some sort of sin by the drivers.
By keeping our eyes on to all the places in our workshop always, will keep away all unwanted items from entering our system. Keep a bin or a basket (an ‘in’ bin) at the entrance of the work shop is an excellent idea of only allowing the things that are worthy to course of the business into the work places. On the opposite end of the ‘in’ bin, you can place another bin that carries an ‘out’ label. Every time after going through the contents of the ‘in’, items that has no value to the improvement of the business like junk mails, ads from local stores, unread portion of newspapers and wrappers can go straight into the ‘out’ bin. This act is a definite time saver, rather than allowing all this junks into the workshop and let them accumulate before actually discard them away later. The golden rule is to only allow the items that require completing of the work cycle in the workshop and to profiting from the completion of the work cycle.
Keeping spic-and-span of every little item in your place that were designed to earning money would result in more money coming at you. Your daily routine is very simple, just follow closely to the routine that I wrote in the ‘Clean up’ post will surely takes you to a prosperous future – Do your clean up routine 10 minutes before work start, 10 minutes after lunch and 10 minutes after you completed the day’s job. No matter where you are or in what business you are in, doing it day in and day out as the best practice because it is THE right thing to keep your business going.
In almost all human activities, getting things done for short period of time is easy but over time our attentions could swerve in other directions and things would gradually return to situation that started off in the beginning. Once this happened, it’s just impossible to recover the time and money that was wasted away. We can't afford to treat these activities like periodic or seasonal carnivals where the activities are only expected to last about a week or one month where the level of enthusiasm was high. The fact that we are so accustomed to this type of life makes us slack in up keeping or maintaining a constant level of concentration over time. Without any doubt, maintaining the orderly arrangement of materials in our workplace for as long as we want it to be is indeed difficult; that’s why in the Japanese kaizen (continuous improvement) of 5S the third step of shining up is simple and vital and acts as a stepping stone towards the more difficult part which is maintaining and making it a part of our daily lives. I will write about it in the oncoming post.
Shining up your working place is a very simple and straight forward act, and yet it being left undone may be because it is too simple or its trivialness is a good excuse for postponement. If you are a person who is very particular about neatness and tidiness, it’ll be good for you to keep up this habit and not be influenced by others who despise it. You can lead the way for your team members to emulate good working practices. Once your habits becomes imbedded and followed by your co-workers you can be proud that you’ve changed the lives of your friends to be more positive towards their work places. The results will be reflected in reducing amount of money incurred by these work places and the income amount will steadily increase.
About 10 years ago, in Japan while going on tour to the historic city of Kyoto, I observed that the drivers of ‘kanko’ (tourists) buses dusted the body of their busses with long feather dusters, some as tall as the drivers themselves, while waiting for their passengers to return to the buses. Practically all the drivers, regardless from what company they belong to, did that routine while waiting for the group of tourists to return from their tour rounds. This acts of dusting entire body of the buses really impressed me. I’m sure that the acts of dusting the buses are still going on until to day. This simple act of keeping their buses shining is important for three reasons. First, is to keep on working and be productive while waiting for their passengers to return in about 30 minutes. Second, the comparatively higher level of quality consciousness of the general public in Japan demands the drivers to maintain a higher standard of services which include the best appearance of the buses all the time. Third, the drivers being responsible employees from their respective ‘kanko’ bus companies must up held the name of their companies, thus leaving the logo or the name of their companies hidden under the accumulated dust would reflect the lazy or poor attitude of the employees. Hence, by keeping the logo or name of their companies under the dust would be committing some sort of sin by the drivers.
By keeping our eyes on to all the places in our workshop always, will keep away all unwanted items from entering our system. Keep a bin or a basket (an ‘in’ bin) at the entrance of the work shop is an excellent idea of only allowing the things that are worthy to course of the business into the work places. On the opposite end of the ‘in’ bin, you can place another bin that carries an ‘out’ label. Every time after going through the contents of the ‘in’, items that has no value to the improvement of the business like junk mails, ads from local stores, unread portion of newspapers and wrappers can go straight into the ‘out’ bin. This act is a definite time saver, rather than allowing all this junks into the workshop and let them accumulate before actually discard them away later. The golden rule is to only allow the items that require completing of the work cycle in the workshop and to profiting from the completion of the work cycle.
Keeping spic-and-span of every little item in your place that were designed to earning money would result in more money coming at you. Your daily routine is very simple, just follow closely to the routine that I wrote in the ‘Clean up’ post will surely takes you to a prosperous future – Do your clean up routine 10 minutes before work start, 10 minutes after lunch and 10 minutes after you completed the day’s job. No matter where you are or in what business you are in, doing it day in and day out as the best practice because it is THE right thing to keep your business going.
