Lean is Green is Sustainable Business Growth
Lean is Green or to be more precise Green is Lean and Sustainable.
In developing a successful Lean/Green culture, understanding the different business processes and their whole of life impact is very important.
- How do these processes impact the business?
- How do business processes affect each other?
- What can we improve?
- What will the benefits be?
- What Value will the benefits add to the business?
- Are the benefits worth pursuing?
- How are we going to make the improvements and measure the benefits to validate actions taken and promote subsequent initiatives?
These are questions that an organisation must ask to be able to start an improvement project. Improvement is always desirable because the result is cost reduction or quality improvement at product, customer or employee level and have a positive effect on the sustainability of processes.
- Sustainability is Green
- So Lean is Green
The implementation of Lean, of sustainability, of green in your organisation, can be done in many different ways, for example:
- Production: Eliminate unnecessary process steps, tackle unnecessary material use/waste and counteract overproduction.
- Innovation: Continue to optimise products, processes, people or logistics
- Energy: Know where your significant energy consumption occurs. Measure/Audit it. Do not consume energy by leaving appliances or machines on unnecessarily. Minimise heat loss/wastage.
- Transport: Know and review your metrics. Are there more fuel-efficient means of transport or different logistics options which could be developed.
The most obvious benefits of Green and Lean are cost savings which are synergistically coupled with value creation opportunities.
Whilst the pursuit of Green and Lean is not a destination but a journey, it is clear that organisations that stretch themselves to build a culture around the values of sustainability, excellence, and equity will ultimately have a big advantage over those who do not.
For more information implementing the Lean is Green approach, please contact ECOS.
T: +353 (0) 61 633644 E: info@ecos.ie W: www.ecos.ie