Choose To Have Cleanest Shop In The Universe

Time spent cleaning is time that should have been spent working.

I don't get paid to clean. I get paid to get work done.

Custodians, maintenance workers, and janitors get paid to keep things clean.

I can understand that in a plant or mill.

Anyone that looks at one of my projects going on here at home, whether it's in my shop or in my driveway, sees nothing but chaos.

Only I know where everything is, and everything is in it's place. It just happens to resemble an explosion.

I will clean up..........but only once........and that's at the end of the project.

In the meantime nobody had better touch anything!

Sounds like I'd be right at home in your shop. I sometimes have a clean down before the final finishing of a bow as I'm using smaller finer tools which will dissappear when dropped in inch deep shavings.
My lab bench is always pretty chaotic, but I know where almost everything is.
I think mess is ok if it's just you in your own domain, but I can see that in a steel mill tidiness is vital for safety (and don't we all love a lady in a hard hat?)
Del
_{(Ouch... flump thud...who left that anvil there? where's that pesky squirrel?)}

I have to agree with Milo. Clean shop is safer, and provides room to focus on what you're doing.

I am far from a neat freak (quite the opposite). But I have learned that clean empty space has a very positive effect on me and sets me free to be focused and productive. Clutter distracts me so that I can't make any real progress until I have seriously cleaned up and made some bare work space to clear my head.

As usual, I have some space-related goals for 2011; getting workshop and office better organized and reallocating work space. Hopefully the side effect will be better productivity, and actually, LESS housekeeping. As better organized means things are easily put away instead of piling up in the workspace..

I agree with artsmith. I'm a home workshop retired guy. My shop is a mess. The amount of space I have is not compatible with my packrat tendencies and this is very frustrating to me. Having to spend 2 days cleaning up before starting a job is a big demotivator. My resolution this year is to remove all of the stuff in my shop not related to the work I want to do in the foreseeable future!! Scrap it, give it away, sell it, store it somewhere else; just get it out of the workshop. The biggest problems are things that clog the floor areas and tools and materials that are seldom used. That includes "projects" that have been waiting for my attention more than a year or two.

Frankly I think that this should be the goal in any efficient business. But the important think is to carefully review the "clutter" in any work area and understand the reasons why it is there. The employees that work in that area may have very good reasons or explanations for the reasons for the mess. Arbitrarily ignore these things an you could find yourself hurting vital production flow or product quality. Those boxes of little parts on that assembly bench may be there because of mistakes in your bills of material or work orders. The cobbled up tools may be there because they drastically cut job time, something that has gone unnoticed by the productioin engineering crew. Or maybe the worker is simply a packrat like me. The important thing is to make your people a part of the cleanup effort and buy into it.

Ed Weldon

The one year rule, if you haven't used it for a year & don't realistically expect to use it in a year move it out of the prime work area

if you are saving junk because some part of it is good material, spend the time to take it apart & store it in an orderly fashion

I tend to work in cycles, when I come to an impasse or can't find something, I start cleaning [or at least putting things away]. The busy work helps me focus

I don't ever feel entitled to have other people clean up after me

I need to have places for everything, even if I don't always use them. Not using the places dedicated to putting things away is a good sign that the area isn't well laid out...

That happened to me as a junior metallurgist. The VP's said I needed to get rid of the piles of paper (journals, trade magazines etc.) Leaned pretty heavy on me. I picked them up. put them in the waste basket- went to lunch came back.

They came into my office after lunch and asked me if I had any info about the Stelco Hamilton cold finish mill. I asked them why? They said "Our comany bought it, and we're wondering what they have."

I went to the waste basket, pulled out the Stelco Times report that had a feature on the cold finish mill, including plant layout, handed it to them, put the piles of magazines back on the shelf, and said, "I don't want to hear about too much crap or messy any more. Obviously I'm keepin the good stuff."

I left them holding the magazine and I went out to the plant. I never heard a word from either one of them again about messy office...

I admit to personal paperwork issues, but I keep my operations absolutely pharmaceutical housekeeping. Bad things happen if the "wrong stuff is at hand...People use it!"-This can increase variability/ out of control.

It's the only thing I admit to being a fascist about- safety/housekeeping.

Thanks for the great discussion everybody.

Milo