Lean: A catalyst for sustainable businesses
Veronica B. Marquez, M.Sc., CSSBB

In the past few years, we have seen a variety of extreme weather events like floods, wildfires, cyclones; winter storm in areas where these don’t usually happen; etc. In August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report in which it indicated that “human actions still have the potential to determine the future course of climate”. Reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) to reach net zero emissions and limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants are key for both our health and the climate.

According to the “Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development Our Common Future” published in 1987, “humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” .

What we need to consider now is, how do we do this in our organisations? Where do we start? How do we start?

In the past decades, Lean has been implemented in many organisations and in a variety of industries, from manufacturing to service providers. Since its introduction in western culture through ‘The Machine that Changed the World’, we have come to see and understand Lean as a means for businesses to better satisfy their customers, be more efficient in their processes, reduce waste and generate more profit. Most of the efforts were put onto eliminating waste (muda) out of the manufacturing processes. It also caused much of the continuous improvement efforts to be concentrated within the supply chain, and most specifically in production and warehousing. One such example of the lack of a holistic approach in Lean is the still present push to ‘make the numbers’ at the end of the month or quarter, which increases unevenness (mura) and overburdening (muri) in production and warehousing.

In this presentation, we will show the synergy that exists between Lean management and reaching a sustainable organisation. We will introduce how such tools as VSM, Hoshin Kanri and 5S can evolve to incorporate sustainability requirements. We will discuss the 8 forms of waste from Lean and the forms of sustainability wastes to add to our evaluations for a more viable approach. Finally, because “linking Lean and Green is a real advantage as opposed to implementing two distinct approaches”, we will introduce a set of tools that can help the participants instigate the necessary changes in their organisation so that sustainability becomes part of their Lean path and evolution.