Employee Engagement – Lean Six Sigma and the Environment

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

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

By -admin
Posted on September 9, 2024September 8, 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

E114: Sustainability Benchmarking Studies with Erin Bauer

By -admin
Posted on July 2, 2024July 1, 2024
Posted in Employee Engagement, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast

I had a great interview with Erin Bauer, who is the Product Development Manager at ASQE, which is a trade association created by ASQ to provide benchmarking assistance to corporations within ASQ. One of their key products is the Insights on Excellence® (IoE) Benchmarking Tool. The benchmarking survey results are available to members and nonmembers

How Tuinderij Vers is learning to see and reducing food waste – Planet Lean

By -admin
Posted on May 23, 2024May 24, 2024
Posted in Employee Engagement, External Article, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Solid Waste, Wasted Food

Faced with increased production volumes for processed vegetables, this Dutch company realized the need to improve its processes by developing people skills. In September 2023, the leadership team participated in a Black Belt course with Lean Management Instituut. The next step was to involve front-line staff through an Orange Belt course. Here are some of

E113: Applying Lean Six Sigma within Nonprofits and Life Coaching with Aleshia Jordan

By -admin
Posted on May 16, 2024May 16, 2024
Posted in Employee Engagement, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast

I had a great interview with Aleshia Jordan a few weeks ago, to discuss how she transitioned from finance to Lean and Six Sigma consulting, and how she is now taking her Master Black Belt skills and over 20 years of experience into her firm Virtualocity, LLC to help organizations, nonprofits and individuals in their

E112: Applying Lean Six Sigma to Healthcare and Career Development with Sarah Tilkens

By -admin
Posted on May 6, 2024May 6, 2024
Posted in Employee Engagement, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast

Making a real difference in your organization can be a struggle, but there is a way to leverage powerful tools and strategies to drive positive change, while also boosting your own career development. In this episode, I introduce you to Sarah Tilkens, a former biologist turned operational excellence leader, who cracked the code on impactful

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

E108: Interview with Maria Grzanka and Reed Harrison

By -admin
Posted on December 21, 2023February 13, 2024
Posted in Employee Engagement, Government, Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast, Volunteering

In this podcast, I share an interview I had with Reed Harrison, Executive Director of Mind Matters Portland, and Maria Grzanka, a process improvement expert and prolific volunteer in Portland, Oregon. Reed worked in Supply Chain management and Operations with major companies like Adidas and Columbia Sportswear, but ended up as Executive Director at Mind

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

Growing sustainably with Lean Thinking

By -admin
Posted on December 8, 2023May 11, 2024
Posted in Employee Engagement, External Article, Solid Waste

Norwegian furniture manufacturer Haugstad Møbel expanded its lean transformation and employee engagement efforts towards the future. They were able to transform their culture and unlock the potential of sustainable product growth through a program to teach the next generation how to re-sell, re-furbish, and re-use furniture. Circular HUB is a learning factory where kids aged