Cleaning Stations (5S)
Cleaning Station Shadow Boards are an excellent start point in any 5S initiative. Cleaning Stations are an essential Visual Management tool to help ensure cleaning tools are always available at the right place, at the right time and when they are needed.
Cleaning Stations are the simplest and most effective way to support your 5S process. SET your cleaning tools in postion and SUSTAIN the process as the tools always have a fixed home position to return to.
Why implement Cleaning Stations in your Workplace?
Reduce time wasted searching for cleaning tools
Differentiate between production areas and avoid cross-contamination
Increase life of cleaning tools
Improve Safety in your workplace
Add professionalism to your workplace
Mobile or Free-standing Cleaning Stations
Often our clients find that wall space is at a premium or cleaning tools need to be close to hand at a centralised location within a facility.
Our Mobile or Freestanding Cleaning Stations ensure the right cleaning tool, at the right place, at the right time and when it is needed.
Mobile Cleaning Stations are supplied with heavy duty castors which can be locked once the Cleaning Station has been located in the desired position.
Our Free-Standing Cleaning Stations can also be supplied with base plates for fixed positions within your facility.
Wall-mounted Cleaning Stations
Wall-mounted Cleaning Stations are ideal to keep near heavy traffic or high chance of spillage areas. Static cleaning stations ensure everybody knows where the cleaning equipment is located when needed.
We can advise on the best fixing method for fixing the Cleaning Station to your wall depending on the surface.
We can also supply a magnetic method of mounting your Cleaning Station to a wall. This method is common in the Food and Drink industry where drilling into Steel clad walls isn’t practical.
Choose the configuration for your Cleaning Station
We have a range of standard Cleaning Stations that come complete with tools for you to choose from to suit your cleaning requirements. Each Cleaning Station is available with a range of colour options.
If you already have cleaning tools or a source of supply that you would like to continue to use, we can supply our Cleaning Stations without tools or with partial supply.
We can supply cleaning tools to suit a range of Cleaning Station environments from ‘standard’ – heavy duty durable plastic tools to wooden/metal tools for hot working environments.
We have a Cleaning Station template maker available for download
Cube or Unique Storage Cleaning Stations
We work with a variety of diverse industries where the cleaning tool requirement can go beyond the usual hand-use cleaning tools. In these applications we are able to supply unique approaches for storage such as the ‘Cube’ Cleaning Station method.
These Cube Cleaning Stations can be supplied with a door to provide internal storage shelves within for cleaning consumables or spares. A Cube Cleaning Station can be supplied on castors to be fully mobile or on base plates to be fixed into position
Cleaning Station Branding
We manufacture all of our Cleaning Stations to order for our clients and encourage application of unique company branding or corporate identity to your Cleaning Station.
Visual Management application is proven to be most successful when it is applied consistently, so by applying consistent branding it strengthens the message across the organisation and underlines the importance of the Cleaning Station in the overall operation of the business.
Our graphic design department will ensure that your Cleaning Station is functional and looks the part.
FAQ's
VMT has over 10 years in the manufacture and supply of 5S Cleaning Station Shadow Boards. We have a range of what we refer to as ‘Standard’ cleaning stations and we also offer a ‘mix and match’ bespoke service.
We thought it might be useful to share some answers to the commonly asked questions we get about our Cleaning Stations.
– Choose one of our Standard Cleaning Stations – We have a range of standard Cleaning Stations (Basic, Medium, Advanced and Professional) to choose from each one is configured with different tooling options, increasing in comprehensiveness through the range.
If one of these options works for you can tell us which one you would like and in what colour and we can send you a quote for you to be able to order against.
– Use our template maker – We have a very simple to use template maker available for download on this page which allows you to set up your own unique configuration of tools for your cleaning station.
Once you have set up your Cleaning Station design to your requirements, send us the file and we can quote for this uniquely configured Cleaning Station option.
– Send us your tools / Invite us to your site – If you have cleaning tools in place or a reliable source of supply in place you are more than welcome to send us a set of your cleaning tools for us to create a design from.
Invite a VMT representative to your facility and we will audit the tooling to ensure we have everything we need to accurately design your Shadow Board.
Depending on your location and the time required onsite we might have to charge a little extra for this option.
Most of our Cleaning Stations are based on applying a laminated vinyl print to an Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) base. ACM is long lasting and durable whilst easy to work with, providing reassurance if your maintenance teams are to fix the Cleaning Station to existing wall space. For environments where tooling might be ‘roughly’ handled, we recommend applying a protection to the face of your Cleaning Station to eliminate any potential scratches to the face of the board. Polycarbonate provides a cost effective, durable and visually pleasing option.
Yes, we can supply our Cleaning Stations on frames. We use a 40mm aluminium profile which is extremely strong and provides the flexibility to modify or adapt for future uses. We can also supply our Cleaning Stations to be mobile (fitted with lockable castors) or supplied with heavy duty base plates for bolting into fixed positions on the floor.
Yes, in fact we encourage our clients to strongly brand up their Cleaning Station with their company branding. We have talented graphic designers who will ensure the designs fit in with your corporate branding and match any other Visual Management products we might have previously supplied.
The lead time of a Cleaning Station hinges on a few factors:
– Tooling availability – for our standard range of Cleaning Stations we procure premium cleaning tools from a well-respected UK based cleaning tool manufacturer. Our supplier does at times have availability issues or surges in demand, but we will do our best to inform you of any disruption in supply.
– Quantity and specification – quite simply a larger Cleaning Station project with more detailed work will take more time to design and manufacture.
On average, a “straight forward” Cleaning Station project with good tool availability, of medium level quantity and specification will take 2-3 weeks from order.
This isn’t an easy one to answer, the longevity of our Cleaning Stations is directly affected by several factors.
– Environment – harsh chemicals found in cleaning equipment and lubricants can, over time have a negative affect on the materials we use to manufacture our Cleaning Stations.
– Behaviours – if the Cleaning Station is respected and tools are carefully returned then there is less risk of dents and scratches appearing. The fixings used to hold tools in place are also more likely to retain their mechanical integrity when not treated poorly.
– Usage – The number of times tools are being placed onto and removed from the Cleaning Station will have an effect on how “fresh” that the board stays.
Difficult environments and heavy usage will influence how well your Cleaning Station lasts. However, we have seen well used VMT Cleaning Stations in testing environments such as rail depots still in use 5-8 years after initial supply.
Yes, we can supply replacement cleaning tools for any previously supplied Cleaning Stations. Just inform us of the design number (number printed in the bottom right-hand corner of the design) and which tools you required to be replaced.
Your board, how you need it.
While we have a catalogue of ‘off the shelf’ designs, we understand that no two business are the same. Create your whiteboard overlay exactly how you need it to be with some of our useful tools below.