Lean sustainability

According to the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance, safety means keeping people's minds at ease. When workers lack that calm, which a secure workplace provides, they become reluctant and sometimes unable to commit their energy to improving production. From this view, every improvement effort starts with safety.

Dennis Averill's guide shows readers how to combine workplace safety and environmental sustainability with Lean methods. Drawing on twenty years of work putting Lean, Safety, Health, and Environmental (SHE) and sustainability programs into chemical, food, and consumer products companies, the author shares practical lessons and lesser-known techniques for cutting waste and raising process efficiency while lowering incident rates and environmental impact. The book treats the SHE pillar as a way into continuous improvement, whichever improvement method a company already uses. It presents tested approaches and first-hand guidance for reaching excellence in safety and sustainability.

Many titles cover Lean, sustainability, or SHE separately, but few explain how to bring them together. This book supplies the tools to build that connection, creating synergy that can strengthen efficiency throughout an organization. It won a 2013 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award.