Category: Water

Use Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEP) to drive sustainability

If you have a small or mid-sized company in the United States (or Puerto Rico), and are in the manufacturing industry, there is a Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) available to help you. MEP Centers are a diverse network of state, university-based, and non-profit organizations, offering products and services that help manufacturers increase profits, create jobs
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fostering sustainable behaviors book review

Book Review for “Fostering Sustainable Behavior”

“Fostering Sustainable Behavior” was written to provide resources to those designing and implementing sustainability initiatives, such as reducing waste, increasing energy efficiency, reducing water consumption, and altering transportation patterns. (p.x) Fostering Sustainable Behavior >>> Mackenzie-Mohr and Smith promote an effective concept called “community-based social marketing”. At first, I didn’t understand what this meant, and almost
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Lean and Green is Free, But its Not a Gift – Lean Blog

In this article, Keivan Zokaei shares his thoughts on Mark Graban’s Lean Blog site. He says that the environmental movement is heading down the same path as the quality movement did in the 1980’s. A famous book from Philip Crosby in 1980 was called “Quality is free: The Art of Making Quality Certain”. He reminds
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Green Your Work by Kim Carlson – Book Review

Green Your Work was written by Kim Carlson, who has led several different businesses through a green transformation, and well before all the “cool kids” were doing it. Green Your Work: Boost Your Bottom Line While Reducing Your Carbon Footprint The book is very well organized, into three main section, for a total of 14
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Minitab Tutorial and Excel Data Tables for Utilizing the EPA’s Statistical Analysis at RCRA Facilities document

In March 2009, the EPA published the document called “STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF GROUNDWATER MONITORING DATA AT RCRA FACILITIES” The document is meant to provide support to RCRA facilities on how to apply the correct statistical techniques. It is essentially a statistics reference guide focused on groundwater contamination data. However, it is a good statistical reference
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Top 5 reasons why environmental problems can hide within a Lean Six Sigma initiative

Lean and Six Sigma are established approaches to improving processes to make organizations more successful. It seems only natural that we would be able to reduce environmental problems with these same approaches. Just by having an improvement program, you will naturally improve the environment when you take out waste and inefficiencies in your company. However,
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Toyota Kentucky facility reflects parent company’s commitment to the environment

I was fortunate to take a tour of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) facility in Georgetown, KY. I say fortunate because it is one of the best manufacturing facilities in North America, and Toyota is one of the top companies in the world. When you want to benchmark how a company implements lean and
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“Six Sigma for Sustainability” book is a must-read!

My background in statistics and Six Sigma was what started me down the path of process improvement. Later on, I added the Lean approach and experience, to balance out my approach, and make it more holistic. As I became more focused on environmental sustainability in my personal life, I quickly saw how nicely these techniques
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