Energy – Lean Six Sigma and the Environment

E119: Applying Lean within Municipal Electric and Water Utilities – Interview with Jennifer Peterson

By -admin
Posted on November 27, 2024November 27, 2024
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Consortium, Employee Engagement, Energy, Government, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast, Water

In this episode, we interview Jennifer Peterson, the manager of Continuous Improvement at Muscatine Power and Water (MPW) in Muscatine, Iowa. She discusses how she got into continuous improvement (CI) and the impact it has had on MPW employees and customers. She highlights the importance of: Jennifer also shares several examples of successful CI projects

E116: Using Energy Treasure Hunts and Energy SWAPs to Engage Employees and Reduce Costs

By -admin
Posted on September 9, 2024November 2, 2024
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Employee Engagement, Energy, Government, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Podcast

In March of 2024, the Iowa Sustainable Business Forum (ISBF) and Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS) were still separate organizations, and they agreed to host a joint webinar to promote Energy Efficiency and Lean. I was fortunate to connect up with Paul Lemar, Jr. from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), who has

E115: Using Lean to Minimize Waste Within ESG Initiatives

By -admin
Posted on July 16, 2024July 15, 2024
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Energy, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast, Solid Waste

Continuing our discussion on Lean Six Sigma and ESG, I brought back last episode’s guest, Erin Bauer (Product Development Manager at ASQE) and added a new guest, Beth Cudney. She is a Professor of Data Analytics and the Program Coordinator for Data Analytics at Maryville University. She received her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from North

Conserve Your Energy – How Quality Practitioners Can Help Reduce Energy Costs (ASQ)

By -admin
Posted on May 11, 2024May 11, 2024
Posted in Energy, External Article, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management

ISO 50001:2018—Energy management can help your organization create an approach to assessing its energy practices through PDCA and continuous improvement tools. While many organizations suffer from the unexamined and wasteful costs of energy consumption as part of their hidden factory, many don’t have trained staff to help assess and reduce these costs. Unfortunately, they miss

E111: Apply Lean to Nonprofit Boards with Sally Toister

By -admin
Posted on April 8, 2024April 23, 2024
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Employee Engagement, Energy, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast, Volunteering, Water

Sally worked many years in the hospitality industry applying Lean Six Sigma, and she shares her experiences to improve the guest experience. She also shares an example of a project that determined the optimal reward points to get customers to agree to reduced or no housekeeping, which was good for the environment, resulting in less

E109: Applying Lean Tools to Environmental and Social Challenges – Lean Global Connection 2023

By -admin
Posted on February 14, 2024February 16, 2024
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Energy, Government, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast, Solid Waste, Volunteering, Water

In this podcast, I share the presentation I gave virtually at the Lean Global Connection on December 1, 2023. It is a free annual online event put on by the Lean Global Network (LGN). The event took place over a 24-hour period. All the presentations were recorded, and I encourage you to check out all

Sofa manufacturer deploys Lean to reduce glue and electricity – Kaizen Institute

By -admin
Posted on January 11, 2024May 11, 2024
Posted in Energy, External Article, Raw Materials

A company aimed to increase mattress production efficiency, eliminate component overproduction in the sofa manufacturing process, and significantly reduce workplace accidents. In addition, they were looking to increase sustainability and business growth by implenting Lean. They focused on optimizing glue usage and electricity consumption. They reduced material waste by 2%, eliminated excess components by 95%, and

E107: Lean Methods for Sustainable Businesses – ISBF Webinar Series

By -admin
Posted on December 12, 2023December 25, 2023
Posted in Book Review, Employee Engagement, Energy, Government, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast, Pollutants, Solid Waste, Volunteering

In this podcast, I share a presentation that was Part 1 of a 2-part sustainability webinar series sponsored by Iowa Sustainable Business Forum and Iowa Lean Consortium (part of CIRAS). It was geared towards introducing those in sustainability roles to Lean methods, which have become some of the most popular improvement methods used in high-performing

E104: How Process Improvement Can Help Address Climate Change with David Saunders

By -admin
Posted on August 24, 2023October 12, 2023
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Employee Engagement, Energy, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast, Pollutants, Transportation, Volunteering

In this episode, I speak with David Saunders, who is a retired Quality consultant and has focused his next career on using improvement tools to reduce the impact of climate change. He is a Certified Climate Change Professional (CC-P) through the Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO), and volunteers with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

E102: How Massport uses Lean to Achieve Sustainable Airport Operations

By -admin
Posted on April 20, 2023May 2, 2023
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Employee Engagement, Energy, Government, Land and Building Use, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Podcast, Pollutants, Solid Waste, Water

In this podcast, I share a webinar held with Dr. Luciana Bardi and Darcy DeGeorge from the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport). MassPort is a state authority responsible for three airports including Logan International Airport, four maritime facilities as well as real estate in Boston. They give an overview of Massport along with the lean engineering