Lean Six Sigma for Good Podcast

Summary

For the next podcast, I wanted to go into more details about the 90 Day WASTE Walk Challenge that we launched this week!

 

Relevant Links

Sign up for 90 Day WASTE Walk Challenge

FREE 1-hour WASTE Walks Course on Udemy

 

Transcript

No transcript available at this time

Summary

For the next podcast, I wanted to play an interview I had with Aaron and Jacob. They run the e6s Methods podcast. We recorded one back in 2015, just a year ago. That was going over Lean Six Sigma and the Environment. It ended up being two different podcasts, so I’m going to combine them together, and play that for you now.

I definitely encourage you to check out the e6s Methods podcast. You can find that at e6s-methods.com. Or you can look for it on iTunes, and I think Stitcher has a link there as well. Their podcast is really good. It’s really good for learning about Lean and Six Sigma, and going over some of the tools that you might have been trained on, but maybe you haven’t had a lot of support or reinforcement of those tools, so they go through and talk on different topics and tools and give their best practices and tips from their years of experience with that. So it’s really valuable as a refresher, or if you’re learning some of the new tools. They’re considered “a source for expert training, consulting, and leadership in business performance and continuous improvement methods, like Lean and Six Sigma

I met Aaron at the Engineering Lean Six Sigma Conference in Atlanta in 2015. We were both speaking at that conference. It was put on by the Institute for Industrial and Systems Engineers, which is IISE. We hit it off pretty well, so he asked me to come talk on his podcast about some of the things I’ve been working on with Lean Six Sigma and the Environment.

So check out this longer podcast from the interview we had. Hope you enjoy!

Relevant Links

e6s Methods website >>>

e6s-Methods podcast on iTunes >>>

e6s Methods on Stitcher >>>

Actual interviews on e6s-Methods podcast: Episode #92 | Episode #93

Transcript

No transcript available at this time

Summary

For the 9th episode, I am going over one of our popular posts, “10 tips to green your 5S events.” I’ve also posted a video of the presentation, so you can view the slides.

Relevant Links

5S Powerpoint Training Slides >>>

Printer Friendly version of 10 Tips >>>

5S Assessment Tool >>>

Tips to Green Your Lean Event >>>

Green Suppliers Network (look under 6S training within Module 5) for conducting follow-up audits

Access our past podcast episodes >>>

Transcript

 

Check out the following page for a transcript and video of this podcast: http://www.leansixsigmaenvironment.org/index.php/10-tips-for-greening-your-5s-workplace-organization-events/

Summary

For the 8th episode, I am posting the audio (and video of the slides) from a presentation I gave at the IISE Annual Conference last month.

The video showing the presentation with slides is shown in the transcript, if you want to see the slides with the audio of my presentation. Email me if you would like a copy of the slides in PDF format.

There is also embedded videos in the transcript, that I showed during the presentation. I highly recommend watching those videos about Energy Treasure Hunts below.

Relevant Links

Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) >>>

IISE Sustainable Development Division >>>

Article about Restore volunteer project >>>

Access our past podcast episodes >>>

Transcript

I recently attended the Institute of Industrial Engineers conference in Anaheim at the end of May 2016. IISE is the name of the organization. It’s a good organization. I’m not an Industrial Engineer, but I got connected with them through their Sustainable Development division, which is a group of people who are looking to help Industrial and Systems Engineers, to see how they can provide solutions, and get more involved in sustainability activities at their work or in their community. So part of their initiatives that the Sustainability division works on, first of all is just education and awareness on how engineers can apply and think about sustainability in the work they do. The other thing we work is a volunteer project that takes place the day before the conference begins. This year, our volunteer effort was at the Habitat for Humanity, or the Restore, building, which is a used construction store. We brought about 20 volunteers, and broke up into two groups. One group was assigned the task of assembling furniture that was donated, and getting it out onto the sales floor, so they could be sold. The other group that I was involved with was unpacking some donated chinaware and silverware that came from an airline. It was kind of fun to try to setup efficient processes and flow with those tasks. That’s one activity they do, is every year try to setup this volunteer project and help the organizations, usually a nonprofit, run their processes more efficiently, using lean and industrial engineering techniques.

The third thing they are working on is trying to make the conference a little bit more green. I just noticed that next year’s conference in Pittsburgh is going to be held at a convention center that has LEED certification, so it looks like some of the effort has been paying off, and they are starting to consider those things when planning and setting up a conference. That’s a good program. I go to this conference usually once a year. I’ve been there the last four years, and I usually give a presentation.

This year my presentation was called, “Using Go and See Events to Reduce Water, Energy and Landfill Costs”

During the presentation, I played two videos. They were only a couple minute each. In the podcast, you’re not going to hear the videos themselves, so I’d encourage you to go to the website and look up the notes for this podcast. In there, you’ll see the links for the two videos.

Summary

For the 7th episode, I am posting an older (but popular) article on how to green your lean event. This episode gives tips and tricks to making your lean six sigma events and meetings more eco-friendly.

We also include a link in the notes to download a free checklist of these suggestions. There is also a link to the video version of this episode, and a link to a similar checklist for greening 5S events.

Relevant Links

Greening Your Lean Event Checklist (Free)

Video version of this podcast episode for “Greening Your Lean Event”

10 Tips for Greening your 5S events (with free checklist)

Access our past podcast episodes >>>

Transcript

One of the podcasts I listen to is Mark Graban. He does the Lean Audio podcast and what he does is he goes in and talks through some of the post he writes, some of the older ones and including some of the new ones and just kind of reads through and talks to the article; just to make sure that the people get the opportunity to see the article by going to the podcast. So I thought that was a really good idea and so I’m going to try to adopt that and pick out some of the post and articles on the site and read them off to you and then if you want to go back and look at them or read through it, or if want to catch something that you missed when I went through it, you have the opportunity to do that on the site.

The first one I want to go through is called “Tips to green your lean event”

Applying Lean and Six Sigma into your company can have a considerable environmental benefits, even if that’s not the original intent of the event. The elimination of waste can have a positive impact on the environment through reduced materials, reduced travel distance, and less overtime, (which would be reduced lighting and equipment usage) and right sizing containers for material and chemical use, just to name a few of those. You can even make a bigger impact by making sure your event, which can be value stream mapping, 5s, kaizen, radical process improvement, (whatever name you call it) make sure that event is conducted as green as possible. A green event is one that is organized with the goal of minimizing waste and promoting sustainable actions. So on the site, there is a checklist that you can download, it goes through and highlights these different things.

The idea with that is you could review that, look it over before your event, and make sure you’re trying to do as many green things as you can. Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list, so you come up with other ideas, please contact, let me know, and I can add it to the list.

The first section to go through is “Handouts and facilitation materials”

First tip would be to capture notes using computers and overhead projector, instead of writing on flip charts and easel pads, and that will save some paper.

If you need to write on paper pads however, you can get the  static cling reusable easel pads, or smart sheets, or wizard paper or wizard sheets. There’s a couple of different names for them now, they are becoming more popular, but instead of the large post it notepads and flip chart paper, that will also reduce paper.

Summary

For the 6th episode, I am posting the final part of a 5 part video course, called W.A.S.T.E. Walks.

This episode summarizes the Walk process, to help you organize and conduct a successful W.A.S.T.E. Walk.

You can view the video version of this course for free by contacting us, so we can send you the free coupon code for the video course.

The following episode will summarize the walk process used to plan, conduct, combine ideas and decide on actions to implement.

Relevant Links

Udemy.com Video Course

Access our past podcast episodes >>>

Transcript

Now that you’ve completed the WASTE walk, and you’ve gathered all the team members back together, what’s next?

Now that you have completed the WASTE walk event, let’s move into the Combine phase of our Walk process

We will be collecting the ideas and opportunities we observed and recorded, and we will group similar ideas together, so that we have a condensed list of actions.

The deliverable for this phase will be an affinity diagram.

Gather all the team members together and have them write their ideas and opportunities on a post-it note (preferably ones made from recycled paper). Place them on a whiteboard or large “butcher” paper that can be hung on the wall.

As items get placed on the board, have the person read off their idea to the group. This will encourage brainstorming of other ideas from the team, or remind people what they observed.

Once all the team members have added their ideas and there are no other brainstormed ideas, the next step is to group very similar ideas together into one idea (which removes duplication).

After all ideas have been reviewed and combined where applicable, have the team go to the board (a few at a time), and combine the ideas into similar groups and categories.

When all ideas are grouped together, the team members should assign a name or label to the groupings, that best reflects what ideas are contained within. It’s preferred to have the team create the categories, instead of having pre-defined categories. This is called an Affinity Diagram.

After categories are labeled, additional brainstorming can occur based on the category names.

The goal is to come up with a final list of ideas that will get prioritized and voted on.

The last phase of the Walk process is Decide, where we place the ideas onto an assessment matrix, and then vote on the top 3 ideas.

The deliverables from this phase will be an Impact-Ease Matrix, and the top 3 actions based on the results of the multivoting exercise.

In the Decide phase, we take the list of ideas and rank them as a team, based on the impact of the idea on reducing the particular waste, and the ease of implementation.

Impact should be based on estimates of data collected during the WASTE walk, or from expert opinions. If that is not available, then the team will estimate the impact.

This will eventually require additional data collection and monitoring to get more concrete numbers. However, that can be fine-tuned during the next step of this phase, when the team decides on the top 3.

To assess the ease of implementation, the team should consider the cost of the idea, along with any behavior change required to implement the idea.

Let’s take a look at the ideas from a Water Walk as an example. If shutting off a valve is easy to do at the end of each shift, and there is no additional cost to implement, then the implementation will be easy.  If the idea requires an expensive upgrade to the equipment, and it will take multiple steps in the software to complete the shut off,...