SHOP SOLUTIONS A clean and organized shop creates a safe and nurturing environment for students and professionals BY JOHN J. RAWLINGS JR. C haotic and disorganized shops and storage areas are a fixture across the theatrical landscape. A clean and organized shop creates a safe and nurturing environment for students and professionals. It helps prevent accidents and injuries. Adopting a lean workflow can improve work quality, safety, morale, and efficiency. Secondary education represents the largest theatre market in the United States. High schools offer a wide variety of facilities from small cafetorium-style theatres to massive spaces comparable to touring houses in major cities. Many of these facilities lack proper staffing with adequate training and support from their administrations, which can lead to disorganization. However, it is possible to organize any space without requiring large capital investments. This can be achieved by eliminating waste from the shop and readjusting workflow. Finding a cost-effective solution to shop organization at the high school level was how I discovered lean manufacturing. Over the past 8 years, I have used the strategies described in this article to organize shops to help improve workflow and efficiency. The Toyota Production System (TPS), developed to improve large-scale manufacturing efficiency and quality, provides an excellent foundation for keeping theatre shops clean and ISSUE 1, 2024 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | 7