Lean Meets Green: How Smart Supply Chains Cut Waste
Supply Chain Management, Kean University and author of books on Lean and the Supply Chain for McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Productivity Press
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Many companies are beginning to realize that Lean and Green are not necessarily contradictory but can be mutually beneficial. Conflicts may arise, for example, when Lean supply chains employ a just-in-time approach involving smaller, more frequent deliveries, which can result in higher CO2 emissions and increased energy consumption.
When companies use Lean tools to reduce waste, Green waste often decreases inadvertently. As a result, these firms might consider adopting an integrated Lean and Green strategy based on the synergies between the two.
One way to determine this synergy is to identify overlaps between Lean and Green wastes.
Green thinking has its own version of the Seven Wastes found in Lean:
1. Energy. Overuse of power from lighting, motors, and electronic equipment.
2. Water. Overuse of fresh water, i.e., paying to use more water than needed and paying again for it to be treated and disposed of.
3. Material. Designing products with virgin raw materials that end up in landfills or creating resource-intensive, non-recyclable products with a short lifespan.
4. Garbage. Paying for something that will be discarded, i.e., something that caused environmental harm during production and incurs additional cost upon disposal.
5. Transportation. Unnecessary movement of materials, goods, or people.
6. Emissions. Paying to create and discharge pollutants on-site and potentially facing fines.
7. Biodiversity. Directly harming flora and fauna or overharvesting resources faster than they can regenerate.
A combined methodology works
A strong reason to use a combined methodology for a Lean, Green supply chain—beyond limited resources to pursue both independently—is that many Green wastes overlap with the Seven Wastes of Lean. For example:
• The Green waste of Energy appears in nearly all of the Seven Lean Wastes.
• Material waste corresponds to Lean wastes such as Transportation, Inventory, and Defects.
• Garbage waste overlaps with Lean wastes like Motion and Defects.
Missing Out on Benefits
Unfortunately, many companies today treat Lean and Green separately, trying to balance them in a way that prevents mutual interference. Firms at this stage, however, often miss out on significant environmental and economic benefits.
Some companies recognize that Lean and Green can be mutually reinforcing. When they use Lean tools to reduce Lean wastes, Green wastes decrease as a byproduct. These firms thus pursue an integrated Lean and Green strategy, leveraging their overlapping synergies.
Ultimately—and more rarely—when Lean and Green become part of the same continuous improvement strategy, the relationship between the two can fully maximize both economic and environmental benefits.