Articles – Lean Six Sigma and the Environment

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

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

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

E110: Lean for Community Projects with Lean Portland – Lean Global Connection 2023

By -admin
Posted on February 20, 2024February 18, 2024
Posted in Lean Six Sigma Tools, Management, Nonprofit, Podcast, Pollutants, Solid Waste, Volunteering

In this podcast, I share the presentation given by my peers who helped us create the Lean Portland group back in 2015. They gave this presentation at the Lean Global Connection on November 30, 2023. It is a free annual online event put on by the Lean Global Network (LGN). The event took place over

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

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