Refer earlier posts for 5S steps 1 & 2

The Shine step is a little more than the cleaners emptying the bins and vacuuming( hoovering for all you Brits) the floors but I don't think it needs too much explanation. Suffice to say that a decent clean of all the surfaces and a general spruce up gives you a baseline for when you move into the next 2 steps.

If you think your staff can get into a "Cleaning Bee" without causing problems ( "but i used to be a french polisher!") then go for it, otherwise get your cleaners to do it.

This is where the hard stuff happens much like when you start at the Gym and after a few weeks find that the lure of a Chardonnay/XXXX straight after work overwhelms your desire to do an hour on the exercise bike! The key is to "Schedule in" 5S activities into the normal work day/week.

Once your team has agreed on the tasks that are needed to:

then you will need to document what they are and how they are done plus create a timetable/roster for these tasks.

An example of these tasks would be to: 

 Maybe a rotating Champion to monitor and check off the task lists is an equitable way to spread the responsibility.

In our office, Sheridan has the "Check list to rule them all" and each week/month emails out the routine tasks we are responsible for completing.We can check them off and return at the end of the week. I believe this gets the mix of pride in accomplishment and fear of consequence ( ask Sheridan about this one!) just right.

Ensuring that the 5S system works month after month and becomes an ingrained culture ultimately comes down to one person;  The Owner/Manager.

 Get your assistant to put a 5S item on your Monthly Checklist . You can start with three simple tasks.

In these posts I have focused on the Office environments of Small to Medium business as I feel there is plenty of low hanging productivity fruit there, however for those wanting to implement 5S in more depth or company wide the following resources are worth a look.