You will find that a big chunk of your waste can be solved by setting up better systems and getting organised. Systems are covered next week, this week we focus on getting organised…

View the images in the gallery below to see before and after examples of your challenge.

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Before and After Challenge Examples

A cluttered workplace usually results in searching, waiting and defect waste. It also contributes to an unsafe work environment.

Come up with solutions that permanently fix the waste rather than a ‘quick fix’ sticking plaster approach.

This is easier to achieve if you work through a systematic process, see the steps to getting organised below.

• Steps to getting organised

  1. Team
  • Everyone needs to get involved
  • Focus on one area at a time
  • Take before photos
  2. Tidy up
  • Decide who will make the hard decisions
  • Do you use it frequently? Yes = put it in work area
  • Do you use it occasionally? Yes = put it in holding area
  • If you don’t use it occasionally can you return, sellor recycle it?
  • If no then it’s rubbish so REMOVE IT
  3. Throw out rubbish
  • Set up a system for managing rubbish effectively, recycle if you can
  4. Give it a home
  • If you use it regularly then locate the item at point of use
  • Giving items a permanent home near where you use them will stop people having to go ‘hunting for them’
  • Label the location or use a picture to show what it should look like
  5. Team
  • Take after photos
  • Agree how you will maintain this new organised workplace

Potential Traps!   

• Keeping things you really don’t need because you ‘might need it one day’…chances are if you haven’t used it in a couple of years then you won’t use it at all.
• Storage of things that aren’t used often in places that mean it gets in the way. Locate items that aren’t used often away from the main work areas.
• Not agreeing on a permanent home and labelling it – things will get put down or put away in different places and that will lead to searching waste again.

Once you have completed the above, Step 5 is next...

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  Step 5 - Setting up systems

  Come up with the right systems to stop waste from coming back, with step 5 of the Waste Hunt Challenge.