Meat + Poultry - August 2009 - 53

OPERATIONS & ENGINEERING

Lean and green are
complementary
Including sustainability in Lean thinking can result in
less waste and significant benefits
By Glen Miller
meatpoultry@sosland.com

enerally, Lean manufacturing
principles and practices are
used to eliminate waste and
wasteful practices that are hidden in
all food-processing plants. Lean practices are applied throughout an enterprise and include administration and

supply-chain issues not always associated with the term "manufacturing."
Sustainability, on the other hand, was
described in 1987 at the World Commission on Environment and Development as, "Development that meets the
needs of the present without compro-

Example 1: Problem-solving framework
Problem: Beef patties are produced at a faster rate than can be sorted,
stacked and placed in container. Rework averages once every five cycles.

Solutions and considerations:
1. Speed up the sorting process by
adding an operator (however, space
becomes an issue).
2. Change the plate on the machine
to eliminate the sort step (Cost and
time are considerable.)
3. Slow down the machine so the
operator can efficiently sort, stack
and place product. (This solution
was implemented.)

MEAT&POULTRY

August 2009

Expected Result: 8 percent increase
in product packaged over a 10 hour
shift.
Actual result: 12 percent more product was boxed and packaged for shipping. Although the machine was running slightly slower, the operator could
retain flow, less product was reworked
and considerably less wrappers and inserts were wasted. Eliminating wasted
plastic and paper resulted in a sustainable solution.

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mising the ability of future organizations to meet their own needs."
This initial description stressed reducing the carbon footprint, minimizing the use of natural resources and reducing waste.
Once viewed as separate ideas, sustainability and Lean are now considered
compatible and complementary. As a
Lean consultant traveling from one food
plant to another, I have found environmental sustainability efforts are much
more likely to gain favor and executive
sponsorship if, along with sustainability,
productivity goes up while waste goes
down. A viable business must make a
profit. Therefore, the economic and efficiency basis of Lean thinking can support the environmental based thinking
of sustainability.
Of course, sustainability or Lean are
not easy to implement. Old habits, traditions and past experience often slow, if
not stop, efforts to implement Lean. To
develop the idea of sustainability and
Lean as two initiatives that can flow as
one, it is beneficial to consider some
of the difficulties and opportunities to
implementation.

Supporting a Lean strategy
First, to implement Lean and sustainability, the leadership in the enterprise needs
to comprehend and support deploying
a Lean strategy that includes the entire
company. Production, supply chain and

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Meat + Poultry - August 2009

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