In a competitive global market, an enterprise that is lean is imperative in more ways than one. Lean in the sense of reducing waste and inefficiencies in your process flows, as well as 'Lean and Green' to reduce your energy costs and carbon emissions. Both are crucial to survival now, and in the coming years.
Your production processes can be made Lean through work such as Kaizen events, Value Stream mapping, 5S Methodology for Organizing a Shared Workplace, Pull from the Customer, etc. The evaluation of Non-Value-Added work and Decreased Cycle Time should also be applied to your processes, in order for your company to stand out among competitors. Any of these improvement methods can also be applied to service and office processes. Office areas offer many ripe improvement opportunities, as they may never have been looked at for efficiencies before!
You can gain savings from measuring and reducing your carbon footprint, increasing energy efficiencies and becoming a sustainable enterprise. Being a sustainable enterprise means that you follow the "Triple Bottom Line" of Economic Prosperity (Profits), Environmental Stewardship (Planet), and Social Responsibility (People). Analyses of your operations, leaning and greening your facilities and offices, all play an important part. Your company profits through lowered energy costs, reduced materials use, and good community and public relations, as well as readiness for future regulations that will certainly be coming down the pike within this decade.
Before going forward, you need to know where you stand today. The improvement process starts with an assessment of your company’s current quality and environmental management system(s), by establishing benchmarks. Then we can develop strategies for continual improvement and/or compliance to international standards. A properly conducted gap analysis will determine benchmarks for where you stand in relation to other businesses that offer exceptional quality or sustainable options, and uncover the gaps where your product or service falls short of expectations.
Benchmarking to ISO 9000, if appropriate:
ISO 9001:2000 is an international standard for quality management systems. This standard is generic and can be applied to any provider of goods or services. The standard is recognized worldwide as a reliable framework for an organization's quality system. Registration has value above and beyond attracting and keeping new customers. It benefits your internal processes too, providing greater efficiency, faster delivery, fewer defects, and fewer complaints.
