Raw Materials – Lean Six Sigma and the Environment

Distillery reduces overfill saving $800K per year

By -admin
Posted on December 1, 2025December 1, 2025
Posted in Raw Materials, Wasted Food

A distillery wanted to eliminate MAV (Maximum Allowable Variation) violations and reduce overfill waste without compromising quality. They looked at implementing statistical process control (SPC) into their operations to better monitor and control the variation. SPC gave them real-time alerts on quality issues and process variation and made it easier to collect the data (moving

E124: Applying Data to Food Quality and Safety with Eric Moore

By -admin
Posted on April 22, 2025April 22, 2025
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Energy, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Podcast, Raw Materials, Solid Waste, Wasted Food

In this episode, I share an interview with Eric Moore, Global Director of Food Safety & Industry Outreach at Testo Solutions, where we discuss Food Safety and Quality, Sustainability, and Innovative Data Monitoring. Eric delves into his extensive 25-year career in food safety, beginning with his education in hospitality at Penn State University and his

E120: Tackling Green with Lean – Lean Global Connection 2024

By -admin
Posted on December 16, 2024December 5, 2024
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Employee Engagement, Energy, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Podcast, Raw Materials, Solid Waste, Wasted Food, Water

In this episode, I share a presentation that the Lean Sustainability Global Network (an unofficial team that I’m involved with) gave at the Lean Global Connection virtual conference in Nov 2024. We share how Lean principles can be applied to tackle pressing environmental challenges and improve processes. For example, Lean and Green expands the traditional

E118: Supply Chains for Good – Interview with C.J. Nord

By -admin
Posted on October 30, 2024November 26, 2024
Posted in Employee Engagement, Podcast, Raw Materials, Solid Waste

In this episode, we interview C.J. Nord, a passionate supply chain manager and consultant, who shares her journey towards driving societal change through supply chain. As the founder of Supply Chains for Good, C.J. discusses her extensive career in supply chain management, her recovery from cancer, and how that inspired her skills to launch impactful

The pursuit of eggscellence – Planet Lean

By -admin
Posted on September 18, 2024September 18, 2024
Posted in Employee Engagement, External Article, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Raw Materials, Wasted Food

Two egg omelette restaurants run by Nima and Faraz Ghorbani in The Netherlands utilize Lean to successfully grow their business, thanks to the training and coaching they received from René Aernoudts of the Lean Management Instituut. One of their challenges was to improve cleaning and operational efficiency. Different equipment and brands made it challenging, so

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

Can lean help battle climate change? – Lean Global Connection

By -admin
Posted on December 1, 2023November 28, 2024
Posted in Carbon Footprint, External Article, Raw Materials, Solid Waste

In the 2023 Lean Global Connection, a panel discussion was organized to discuss the use of Lean to combat climate change and reduce carbon emissions. A few themes emerged. While lean does not automatically equate to green practices, its principles and tools can significantly contribute to environmental sustainability. Sustainability is no longer about convincing people

E090: Guest Interview on Environmentally Conscious Nation Podcast from Aug 2021

By -admin
Posted on January 12, 2022September 29, 2022
Posted in Carbon Footprint, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Nonprofit, Podcast, Pollutants, Raw Materials, Solid Waste, Transportation, Water

In today’s episode, I share the interview I had with D.J. Vagnetti, host of the Environmentally Conscious Nation podcast. I don’t think his podcast is still active, otherwise I would recommend listening directly to the episode. This interview assumes that the audience doesn’t know much about process improvement or Lean or Six Sigma, so if

E075: Saving the Timber – Henry Ford’s Today and Tomorrow

By -admin
Posted on September 17, 2020October 5, 2020
Posted in Land and Building Use, Podcast, Raw Materials, Solid Waste

In this episode, I share chapter 11 of the 1926 book, “Today and Tomorrow” by Henry Ford. In this chapter, he discusses how they reduced their use of wood while still increasing production. He also talks about minimizing fuel usage and reducing metal scrap. He applied his improvement methods to all aspects of his business,

EC 021: Using Six Sigma to Green Your Office Supplies

By -admin
Posted on July 1, 2017April 5, 2020
Posted in Podcast, Raw Materials

Summary On this podcast, I talk about some work I’ve done recently to try and improve the office supply purchasing decisions, using the Greener Office program through Office Depot. I explain how we took the initial report of our “green score,” and how we have started to apply the DMAIC Six Sigma project approach to tackle