Journal of Tea Science Research. 2015, Vol. 5, No. 6, 1-14
3
structured management system and incorporated into
overall management activities of the organization
concerned which provide the maximum benefits for
interested parties. The standard integrates the
HACCP system and application steps developed by
Codex Alimentarius Commission. By means of
auditable requirements, it combines the HACCP
plan with (PRPs) perquisite programs (ISO 22000,
2005). The ISO 22000 FSMS has been developed
based on risk based management model focusing the
entire food supply chain through harmonization.
While improving the tea industry, Sri Lanka Tea
board, Tea Research Institute and Plantation owners
had committed greatly where various new technologies,
improvements, polices and regulations introduced
over the time and adapted. Some of these
introductions were diminished over the time and
some of them were survived while few of them were
greatly adapted and adsorbed by governing and
regulatory organizations as well as plantation or
factory owners and their subordinates. One of such
introductions was Japanese 5S method which has
helped tea industry to improve its productivity and
organization of work place into a more productive
system. Nevertheless, tea industry also adapted ISO
22000, HACCP, ISO 9001, UTC, Ethical Tea
Partnership and many other different standards
relating to buyer requirements or the company’s
individual preferences.
5S was initially originated in Japan which dates back
to the post developments of World War II (Osada,
1991), where it was used to improve the overall
productivity of manufacturing through focusing
cleanliness, orderliness and discipline with continuous
improvements. The concept was first developed by
Hiroyuki Hirano (Patel and Thakkar, 2014) and it
was further developed by Takashi Osada around
1980’s which was commonly adapted by Japanese
firms to enhance human capabilities while improving
the productivity (Kumar et al., 2007; Daud et al.,
2006). 5S has five words begin with “S” where it got
its name and they are Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu
and Shitsuke, in Japanese language which means
Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain in
English. The five words can be explains as follows
in literature.
Seiri – Sort:
it is the first step of 5S and stress to
remove all unnecessary or surplus objects from the
workplace that has no immediate requirement for
ongoing operations (Hough, 2008).
Seiton – Set in Order:
The second word which
requests to keep all the sorted items in right places
where they are frequently required for the
smoothness of operation. The users must be motivated
to place objects in right places where it belongs or at
its point of use which help improve the visual
management of work place (Van, 2006).
Siso – Shine:
After the removal of unnecessary
items away from the work station while re-placing
the necessary objects in right places according to the
utility, it was necessary to set the sanitizing or
cleaning standards (Howell, 2009) where a cross-
functional team should decide on the required
cleaning standards (Samuels, 2009) for the operation.
Seiketsu – Standardize:
The maintenance of the
work place was mandatory after organizing and
cleaning of the place, thus standardizing is required
(Cooper et al., 2007) for the continuation of previous
achievements (Samuels, 2009).
Shitsuke – Sustain:
The success of a 5S
implementation is basically depends on the sustainability
of the program where benefits of above 4S were
easily measurable and visually observed. But without
self-discipline which was the element of sustainability,
can be momentary and transform back to the initial
messy workstation (Maggie, 2006).
According Goetsch and Davis (2010), continuous
cost reduction and improvements of quality were
critical requirements for any organization to stay on
business in any competitive marketplace. Since 5S
was very popular around the world today as a total
quality management tool (TQM), it has absorbed
into many industries as well as service organizations
which was further associated with other major TQM
tools such as Kaizen, Continuous Improvement, Six
Sigma, Just-in-Time (JIT) (Wakhlu, 2007) as well as
Lean Management. Thus 5S was helping many
