The Japanese lean production system known as 5S is currently being launched at UC RUSAL’s bauxite mine in Severouralsk, the company’s local press officer Roman Lukichev says.

All the mines and production shops have been provided with step-by-step plans of introducing the lean production principles; they’ve also got workplace clean-up schedules and zoning schemes now. Prior to launching the new system, the shop premises were refurbished, and all the tools have been re-examined and sorted out. Finally, the areas of the shop that are safe to be in are now marked with yellow lines.

'We needed a system approach to keep things in order, and using the new technologies has already led to absence of sundries in shops as well as absence of accidents; besides, the quality of repair jobs soared. When launching 5S, we tried to take our workers’ improvement proposals into account rather than simply copy the Japanese original,’ says the head of the company’s power shop Alexander Bushmelev. Head of electrical repair shop Vladimir Seferov reports 5S has already proved fruitful.