Re: Lean and Green Visuals

[Georjean Adams <gla@ehsstrategies.com>]

Title: Re: Lean and Green Visuals

I know there are lots of great P2 stories (and even pictures).  The hook I'm looking for is when lean manufacturing tools per se have been used to get those results.  Again - small companies believe in lean and already have all sorts of projects going on.  What I want to do is piggy back on those efforts and open their eyes to including environmental metrics.

In fact, one of the questions I'm going to ask is for attendees to describe their last Kaizen event and get them to see (I hope) that they did pollution prevention without even knowing it.  E.g., when building the 3M "Pollution Prevention Pays" program, we would go find "Program for Profit" activities (done for production cost reduction) and mine them for stats to use for 3P.

Thanks for the links!

Georjean

At 9:35 AM -0700 7/10/08, Gary Liss wrote:

> Georjean,
>
> All Zero Waste Businesses that have been documented have saved money. 
> They save the most from reducing wasting; then save from reusing
> products or setting up reuse systems (e.g., returnable shipping
> containers and pallets); and finally save some more from recycling and
> composting (the last resort).  We're now seeing companies
> promoting the fact that they are Zero Waste Businesses to prove that
> they are the greenest of the green (e.g., Toyota's ad with a car made
> of all natural products decomposing back to nature during the 30
> second spot with a voice-over - "We're not only for Zero
> emissions, we're for Zero Waste").
>
> Some of the Zero Waste Businesses documented are small businesses. 
> For details, go to:
>  http://www.grrn.org/zerowaste/business/profiles.php 
> and
>  http://www.earthresource.org/zerowaste.html.  At the Earth
> Resource Foundation website, there are presentations posted for the
> past 3 Zero Waste Business conferences, which have LOTS of great
> visuals.
>
> Gary
>
> At 08:44 AM 7/10/2008, Georjean Adams wrote:
> > A lot of smaller companies have bought
> > into lean manufacturing as a way to reduce their business costs (lean
> > "wastes").  I moderated a session on Lean and Green for
> > the Manufacturers Alliance (Minnesota) last year, but it's a challenge
> > to get companies interested.  I am trying again with a 1/2 day workshop
> > on "Greening Your Lean Program"  August 26, 2008. 
> > I am using the EPA toolkits at epa.gov/lean and some case studies from
> > Washington
> > State Dept. of Ecology.  I'll also be trying out Kurt
> > Middlekoop's (Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center) "Learning
> > How to See" (washing hands) as a small group training exercise
> > (thanks to Cindy McComas, MnTAP).
> >
> > I'd appreciate additional examples of hands-on exercises and
> > compelling success stories with good before/after pictures.  Most
> > of what I can find for lean and green manufacturing involves big
> > companies.  We need to convince smaller businesses that they too
> > can look for green improvements with the lean tools they are already
> > using!
> >
> > Assuming the workshop happens, I'll be glad to share what worked and
> > didn't.
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Georjean Adams
> > --
> >  EHS Strategies, Inc.
> > - enabling organizations to meet their EHS vision
> >  www.ehsstrategies.com
> > 651-204-3371

Gary Liss      
916-652-7850   
Fax: 916-652-0485
www.garyliss.com

-- 

EHS Strategies, Inc.

- enabling organizations to meet their EHS vision

www.ehsstrategies.com

651-204-3371