ŁEFA Lean Manufacturing & the
Environment
Opportunities for Environmental Improvement
Lean manufacturing is a business model and collection of methods that focuses on the elimination of many types
of waste while delivering quality products on time and at least cost. EPA is interested in finding ways to maximize
the environmental benefits of lean.
Contacts:
Chris Reed
US EPA National Center for Environmental
Innovation
202-566-0606, reed.chns@epa.gov
The Lean and Environment Toolkit,
a collaboration between EPA and its
partners, provides practical strategies for
using Lean to reduce environmental waste.
Using the tools enhances Lean results -
waste elimination, quality enhancement,
delivery of value to customers - while
helping to protect the environment. You
can find more information on the toolkit
at: http://www.epa.gov/lean/toolkit
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Lean and EroinnaitToolldt
Background
Lean manufacturing is a business model that emphasizes eliminating
waste while delivering quality products at the least cost to the
manufacturer and customers. In this context "waste" refers to
inefficiencies of all kinds, ranging from time and movement to energy
and materials. In the U.S., lean implementation began in the 1980's in
the automotive and aerospace sectors. Today, lean initiatives are
spreading rapidly in numerous manufacturing and service sectors.
Lean thinking focuses on three objectives:
• Reducing production resource requirements by minimizing
inventory, equipment, storage and production space, and
materials;
• Increasing manufacturing velocity and flexibility; and
• Improving quality and eliminate defects.
Lean methods create a continual improvement-based, waste elimination culture
that involves workers at all levels of the organization. Lhere are a
variety of common lean methods, including Kai^en (Japanese for
improvement) rapid improvement events, just-in-time manufacturing,
value stream mapping, total productive maintenance, cellular
production (or synchronous, single-piece flow manufacturing). Six
Sigma is a closely related business strategy focused on maximizing
quality.
NCEI
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION
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Lean and the Environment
An October 2003 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) report (see http: / /www.epa.gov/innovation /lean)
examines the relationship between lean and the
environment and points out opportunities for further
enhancing organizations' environmental performance
through their lean initiatives.
Some key findings:
• Lean produces an operational and cultural
environment that is highly conducive to
waste minimisation and pollution prevention,
Significant environmental benefits typically ride
the coattails of lean initiatives. The powerful
economic and competitiveness drivers behind
lean drive a willingness to undertake substantial
operational and cultural changes, many of
which have important environmental
performance implications. Lean typically
results in less material use, less scrap, reduced
water and energy use, and decreased number and
amount of chemicals used.
• Lean can be leveraged to produce even more
environmental improvement. Although lean
currently produces environmental benefits
and establishes a systemic, continual
improvement-based waste elimination culture,
lean methods do not explicitly incorporate
environmental performance considerations,
forgoing some environmental improvement
opportunities. Lean provides an excellent
platform for broadening companies' definition
of "waste" to address environmental risk and
product life-cycle considerations, as some lean
practitioners have demonstrated.
• Some regulatory issues can be encountered
when applying lean to environmentally
sensitive processes. The flexible, and rapidly
changing operating approach used in lean
manufacturing is quite different from traditional
manufacturing operations and can be challenging
to use in environmentally-sensitive manufacturing
processes such as painting and coating. Some lean
practitioners believe this results in situations where
either environmental performance improvements
can be constrained or the risk of non-
compliance increases.
• Environmental agencies have a window of
opportunity - while companies are embarking on
lean initiatives and investments - to collaborate
with lean promoters to further improve the
environmental benefits associated with lean.
There is a strong and growing network of
organizations promoting lean. These
organizations share a goal with organizations
promoting environmental improvement and
pollution prevention—both strive to eliminate
waste from business. At present, however, there
is very little coordination or collaboration between
the environmental and lean networks.
EPA and Lean
Recognizing that lean trends have implications for both
regulatory and non-regulatory programs, EPA is working
with lean experts, organizations implementing lean, state
environmental agencies, and other partners to:
• Raise awareness about the relationship of lean
production to environmental performance.
• Share "good practices" for improving the
environmental benefits of lean initiatives.
• Develop and disseminate integrated lean and
environment tools.
• Identify and address environmental regulatory
considerations associated with lean.
• Explore how lean techniques might be used to
improve government administrative processes
(e.g., permitting).
EPA is working with partners in a number of industry
sectors and in government agencies to document lean and
environment success stories and to develop and test tools
that organizations could use to maximize the
environmental benefits of lean. In addition, EPA is
conducting outreach about lean and the environment to
lean practitioners and pollution prevention (P2) technical
assistance providers. Finally, EPA is working with states to
apply lean techniques to streamline permitting.
Further Information
More information about EPA's lean and environment
activities and research is available on EPA's Lean website:
http://www.epa.gov/lean.
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Policy,
Economics and Innovation
(1807T1
September 2005
EPA-231-F-05-003
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