To explore the history of 5S in quality assurance it is necessary to begin with Venetian

shipbuilders of the 16th century. The Arsenal of Venice during Elizabethan times was a
paragon of efficiency in manufacturing. The enclosed Arsenal employed thousands of
shipbuilders and followed an assembly line approach. Different pieces from which a
galley was made were prepared in workshops, ready to be assembled into a whole ship.
Story has it that a 1574 visit from King Henry III of France prompted the shipbuilders to
build an entire galley in the two hours or so in which Henry attended a banquet in the
Arsenal's Great Hall. Whether the ship was sound or not is a matter of conjecture, but it
did aptly demonstrate the efficiency of the shipbuilding operation.

Toyota
Skip to post World War II Japan. Toyota's founder, Sakichi Toyoda, his son Kiichiro, and
chief engineer Taiichi Ohno developed Toyota's Total Production System, or TPS, a
philosophy that still provides the foundation for manufacturing and logistics at the
Japanese auto giant.
On a visit to the U.S., the three studied the assembly line at Ford
and while acknowledging the enormity of the manufacturing
machine, they were also dismayed by the waste. Even though it
was an assembly line, there was a lot of waiting on steps so as to
get to other steps, and completed work piled up. The routine
overproduction led to routine layoffs and rehires.
Toyoda also visited a Piggly Wiggly Supermarket and was quite
impressed with their system of reordering and restocking as they
were purchased. This is the basis for what is now called "just in
time" or JIT inventory. To achieve this at Toyota, they reduced the inventory to what
they would need for a short period of time and reorder. This is the real starting point of
history of 5S. The goal of 5S is to give a feeling of ownership of process to each
employee.

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