Saint Louis University (SLU) held the 5S Champions Meet-Up on 20 October 2026 at the SLU Incubator for Research, Innovation, and Business Center, Otto Hahn Building, SLU main campus. The session brought together the Area 5S Champions of the university’s offices and units, Industrial Engineering 5S Patrols, and SLU 5S Lead to prepare for Rollout Cycle 1 of the 2026 5S Program, which runs from 15 October to 15 November 2026 covering 39 units in six office clusters.
The meet-up was facilitated by Maria Corazon D. Ocampo, CSSGB, SLU 5S Lead from the Campus Planning, Maintenance and Security Department (CPMSD). Its goal was for every champion to leave with a working understanding of the 2026 5S Guidelines, the 2026 5S Work Instructions, the FM-CMS-041 5S Checklist used to rate each area, and the new Champion Weekly Report.
Mr. Jeffrey James Gamit, Director of CPMSD, also joined the meet-up and inspired the 5S Champions to continue developing 5S in the university. Mr. Gamit thanked the champions for the progress their areas have made since the first audits and encouraged them to sustain the practice beyond Rollout Cycle 1, making 5S part of the everyday work of every office and unit.
From baseline audits to a documented program
The session opened with a look back at SLU’s 5S journey. In 2024, the FM-CMS-041 Campus 5S Monitoring Form took effect and the first Sort (1S) and Set in Order (2S) audits set the baseline ratings. In 2025, the SLU 5S Lead and the IE 5S Patrols audited 37 areas in six clusters, with before-and-after evidence for 1S to 3S. Areas audited in both years showed clear gains: the laboratory’s Sort rating rose from 2.97 to 4.87 and its Set in Order rating from 2.92 to 4.92.
The Most Improved areas of the 2025 audit were recognized per cluster: the Talged Center, the Human Resource Department, the Printing Operations Office, Basic Education Department – Elementary, the Center for Culture and the Arts, and Basic Education Department – Senior High School, together with their 5S Champions.
The 2026 Guidelines and Work Instructions
The participants were then walked through the 2026 5S Guidelines and 5S Work Instructions (Rev 00, 16 September 2026), which link four documents in a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle: the Guidelines set direction, the Work Instructions describe how each S is done, the FM-CMS-041 Checklist rates the area, and the Champion Weekly Report drives action and closure.
The key points covered included:
- The governance structure, from CPMSD and the 5S Lead to the Area Champions, IE 5S Patrols, faculty, staff and students
- The champion’s role in local rollout, awareness building, documentation, coordination and continuous improvement
- The stop-work rule: no item is moved, cleaned, opened, disposed of or red-tagged if it could expose anyone to an uncontrolled hazard
- The Red Tag workflow and form, including the no-signature rule and approval for items worth PHP 10,000 or more
- The official SLU 5S label (4 × 1 inches, Montserrat Bold 18), the office cluster color coding, and the Workplace ID
As the Work Instructions put it, “A compliant area makes the right item easy to find, the wrong condition easy to see, and the next action clear.”
How areas will be rated and reported
Each area will be rated on the 32 items of the FM-CMS-041 5S Checklist. A first survey will be held at each S gate, starting with Sort on 22–23 October, followed by a second survey of all 32 items on 13 November by a different cross-auditor. Ratings are interpreted from Needs Improvement (1.00–1.80) to Excellent (4.21–5.00).
The technical part of the session ended with the new Champion Weekly Report, an Excel file in which each champion logs findings with before-and-after photos, tracks open and closed issues per S, and submits the week’s report as a PDF to the SLU 5S Lead every Monday. The first report, for 19–23 October, is due on 26 October 2026.
Cluster discussions
After the presentation, the champions and patrols broke into their office clusters. Each table brought together the 5S Champions of the cluster’s units and the IE 5S Patrols assigned to them, who reviewed the gate schedule and the checklist items, agreed on how they will coordinate the surveys, and raised questions on the Red Tag process and the weekly report.
Next steps
The champions were asked to fill in the My Unit sheet of their weekly report file, take baseline photos of their areas, and start logging findings for Week 1. Each area will prepare for the FM-CMS-041 survey at every gate and submit its weekly report to the SLU 5S Lead every Monday until 21 December 2026. A separate walkthrough of the Rollout Tracker will follow.
Through the 5S Program, SLU continues to build safer, cleaner and more efficient workplaces across the campus. The initiative supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). (Article and Photos by MCD Ocampo)
