The Ceylon Pencil Co. clinches 5S Gold Award

By Shezna Shums

The Ceylon Pencil Company Ltd. won the Taiki Akimoto 5S Gold Award at the recently concluded awards ceremony. The 5S management practice that the company believes is the foundation to many a best management practises that give them the edge to improve productivity and quality.

In addition, these 5S principles also helped the company to overcome mundane workforce issues and help the company leap onto the next level of efficiency and productivity.

The Ceylon Pencil Company Ltd won the ‘Community Leadership Award’ awarded by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) Sri Lanka branch, in recognition of the contribution made for the betterment of the education sector in Sri Lanka.

The Atlas Chooty advertisement published by the Ceylon Pencil Company Limited won the ‘Swarna Maura-Media Advertising award for good media publicity at the Ninth Triennial Conference of the Regional Council for South and South East Asia.

The Ceylon Pencil Company Ltd. created history to be the only manufacturer of exercise books to conform to the prestigious ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System Certification. The   ISO 9001:2000 certification is awarded to companies that meet ISO requirements in systems and processes, management, resources, control mechanism and remedial activities.

The Ceylon Pencil Company Ltd has won the ‘5S JASTECA Award-2008 Special Merit’ awarded by JASTECA as well.

The 5S is a management practice which facilitates a clutter free environment. The five pillars of 5S are:

Sort — All tools, parts and supplies not needed are removed from the area Set in order — There is a place for everything; and everything is put in its place Shine — The work area is cleaned as the work is performed Standardise — Cleaning and identification methods are consistently applied Sustain — 5S is a habit and is continually improved 5S represents five disciplines for maintaining a visual workplace (visual controls and information systems)These are the foundation to Kaizen (continuous improvement) and a manufacturing strategy based on ‘lean manufacturing’ (waste removing) concepts.

5S is one of the activities that will help ensure a company’s survival as zero clutter leads to zero confusion. 5S is not an end destination it should be a way of life.

The Taiki Akimoto award is organised by JASTECA.

JASTECA —Japan Sri Lanka Technical and Cultural Association, was established in 1984 and is a non profit service organisation and functions as the alumni of the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS) Japan. The executive committee and the membership of JASTECA consists of returned trainees of AOTS scholarship programmes, who have volunteered their services to coordinate scholarship activities and also to disseminate the knowledge and expertise gained in Japan to other Sri Lankans.

The Ceylon Pencil Company Limited started in Peliyagoda in the Kelani valley on 29 September 1957 and was founded by D.S.Madanayake and had a workforce of only 10 persons. Currently there are over 1500 people working in the company

Nishantha Hannadige said that The Ceylon Pencil Company Ltd. beat about 95 companies in winning this gold award.

The company is the largest stationary company in the country and provides over 500 different products to students and other companies. “We are the leader in almost all categories,” said Hannadige.

He went on to stay that the 5S concept is something that in also imbedded in the culture on the country where the people clean their environment and surroundings and thus it is also implemented in the company to create a better environment which has an overall effect on employees and eventually improves standards and efficiency in the company.

He also noted that the company is ready to share their knowledge and experience regarding 5S toward schools, in order to help them too, to keep their environment clean and put the other practises into play to achieve efficiency and high standards.

Viraj Jayasooriya added that sustaining 5S within the company is also an ongoing process and that it takes a lot of work to maintain such high standards.

He noted that the golden rule in a company is that the price and quality of the product are determined by the customer, and said with pride that the Ceylon Pencil Company Ltd. looks after both its internal customers their employees and their external customers.

“5S is the foundation to a lean and efficient organisation that ensures discipline, product quality, a safe environment and a happy workforce.”

He added that one particular Atlas product which was sold for Rs. 10 in 2008 continues to be sold for Rs. 10 to date and that this was their success story.