Sort, straighten, shine, standardize and sustain. Those are the five steps to an organized, efficient and productive business, says Debbie Mola Mickler of the Disney horticulture team. The principles of kaizen, meaning ‘good change’ in Japanese, include those five values for keeping a place for everything and everything in its place.
“It’s a basic, fundamental approach for productivity, quality and safety improvement in all lines of our business here at Walt Disney World,” she says. “I’m sure with all businesses, not just Walt Disney World, it improves profitability, efficiency, service and safety and there are several advantages.”
Mola Mickler describes the five S’s this way:
Sort – Getting rid of all unneeded tools or materials
Straighten –Place things in order and make sure that everything has its place
Shine – Always keep your workplace clean
Standardize –Identify those tools or materials that you use all the time and that’s going to be your standard.
Sustain – Get into a habit so that you’re sustaining a clean work environment that’s always well organized.
Mola Mickler says Disney added Safety to that list since it’s so important to the organization.
By getting (and staying) organized, productivity goes up, quality of work improves and employees even get more job satisfaction, Mola Mickler says.
Getting organized.
At Disney, a few changes needed to be made to achieve organization and efficiency. By looking at the program, they realized they had too many tools in their inventory for the number of workers. They were also hanging onto items they never used. “I’m sure a lot of us do this at home too,” Mola Mickler says. “We hold onto things thinking ‘Oh boy, we’re gonna use that someday.”
Once the clutter is gone, it’s time to organize for efficiency. Tools and equipment used most frequently should be placed in the front of the trailer or storage shed, making them readily available.
At Disney, they even transformed their stationary sheds into trailers so that everything the team needs for the day is right there. Everything from tools to safety gear to lunches is in one spot.
Staying organized.
At Walt Disney World, organization and efficiency are part of daily meetings. A crew leader or team member is placed in charge of the program and it’s part of every manager’s job to communicate the right way to do things. Mola Mickler says that’s how they’ve stayed on track.
“I went through a lot of the trailers and sheds to see if we were still following those [principles] and yes we were ad really it’s from those appointed crew leaders or team members that are passionate about the program – keeping it in order so starting every day, they have all their tools and equipment in place," she says.