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INDUSTRY - June 2000
Cleanliness is
Next to Godliness
Springtime on the
farm was always a time for cleaning when I was growing up. My father
would start his "spring cleaning" in late February and
early March by cleaning the barns. Then he would begin to cut the brush
that had grown up in fence rows all around the farm, hauling and stacking
it in a neat pile. This activity continued
for some weeks until he had gathered enough to "burn"
a tobacco bed. After a long day out in the cold spring weather my mother
would fuss, "Alfred, it is too cold for you to be out in this
weather." Dad would answer, "Now Jalie, you know that
cleanliness is next to Godliness." The first time I
ever set foot inside a manufacturing facility was in early June, 1952.
The manufacturer was the Hamilton Foundry and Machine Company in Hamilton,
Ohio. I will never forget how shocked I was to see the dirty foundry.
I was in many manufacturing
facilities as the years passed, in both southern Ohio and Kentucky.
Many were not exactly as clean as one would expect things to be in their
kitchen. IBM would later help me change this perception. Their standard
was, "clean enough to wear a white shirt to work on the factory
floor." Henry Ford was one
of the first industrialists to insist on absolute cleanliness. He states
in his book, Today and Tomorrow (1926), in discussing his early quarry
operations primary to glass making, "this quarry is clean and
the crushing plat is clean. That is another of our absolute rules ‹
every operation must be cleanly performed, and if some of the machines
tend to create dust ‹ and crushers do ‹ then they must be
made tight and apparatus provided for taking away dust. It is not right
to expose men to dust, nor is it right to put a layer of dust over the
surrounding country and spoil its trees and plants." (Ford, 1926)
A safe workplace is one that is clean and orderly. A number of research
reports sponsored by the U.S. Government have shown that poor housekeeping
is the primary cause of accidents at work. Toyota Motor Manufacturing has an equivalent rule to Ford's. They have what they call the 4S Program: Sifting, Sorting, Sweeping, and Spick and Span. A clean orderly workplace is, in the language of my father, "next to Godliness."
Dr. Arlie Hall is an adjunct professor for the Center for Robotics and Manufacturing at the University of Kentucky’s College of Engineering
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