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The paper presents the development of a continuous improvement process for the customer relations department at Severn Trent Water in the UK. In‐company research was carried out to identify the main barriers to continuous improvement in the areas of leadership, training, communication, motivation, teamwork, and change management. The study concluded that the company should develop an organisational culture and management style to support continuous improvement of daily working processes, and that change should be managed against the achievement of appropriate quality targets. A continuous improvement process was developed based on a structured problem‐solving model incorporating the application of established quality tools, to be applied by problem solving teams from the customer relations department. It was recommended that the team members should be trained in the problem solving process, and the related quality tools and techniques. Also, management should lead and support this approach by concentrating on team (rather than individual) performance achievement.

This paper presents the findings of a survey on the use of the Japanese practice of 5‐S for workplace organisation in the UK. The research methodology was to review the literature, conduct a survey using a questionnaire, follow‐up the questionnaire with a series of semi‐structured interviews and critique findings with the literature. The conclusions of the research are that practice and theory are closely related and any differences in the implementation of 5‐S can be attributed mainly to the maturity of the 5‐S programme. Clearly, there is great scope for the application of 5‐S in the non‐manufacturing environment.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a readiness programme designed to increase employees’ awareness of order and cleanliness as a way of building the necessary foundation for implementing and sustaining continuous improvement processes. In this paper, the authors propose a new readiness programme based on the principles of 5S, with the aim of strengthening employees’ motivation and involvement prior to 5S being implemented.

The research is based on case study methodology, followed by a programme of four structured activities. The validity of the programme is shown through the implementation of the activities in two different organizations.

The readiness programme was applied before 5S was successfully implemented. The degree of awareness and motivation of the programme participants improved as a result of these activities. Moreover, the activities increased people’s motivation to participate in improvement activities.

Applying a readiness programme before implementing 5S can help organizations to achieve and sustain improvement activities, thus increasing worker commitment and motivation.