Manufacturing organizations are increasingly leveraging data-driven strategies and quality methodologies like Six Sigma to achieve environmental sustainability and significant cost savings. By utilizing frameworks such as DMAIC and the House of Quality (part of Design for Six Sigma), companies can transition toward a circular economy by manufacturing with partially recycled materials and optimizing processes to […]
The Blackbelt Unincorporated Wastewater Program (BBUWP) was established to address acute Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) challenges in rural Alabama, where over 375,000 residents in unincorporated areas lack access to essential wastewater services. This problem is compounded by socioeconomic factors, as race is a significant predictor of sanitation access in the U.S., leaving many low-income […]
Written by Brion
SKC expanded its existing Lean program by incorporating Sustainability (Lean and Green) into a pilot project to focus on cafeteria waste, which accounted for over half of the company’s non-hazardous waste. Although the team initially assumed the issue was kitchen overproduction, their data collection and analysis revealed the root cause was behavioral: employees were taking […]
Written by Brion
Hundreds of millions across our planet live with the risks posed by natural geohazards such as volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, especially those living near Japan, which is a highly active region near a large population. Over the last few decades, rapid increases in technology, instrumentation, remote sensing, and data storage have created huge opportunities in […]
Written by Brion
On the Lean Six Sigma for Good podcast, Brion interviews Mike Wrathall, an Agile and Sustainability consultant about his extensive work background helping organizations in the private and public sector improve. Projects included social housing, homelessness, domestic violence victims, public education and regenerative agriculture. You can view the notes and transcript at https://leansixsigmaenvironment.org/index.php/e131-agile-and-sustainability-in-the-uk-with-mike-wrathall/, or watch […]
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Using data from a project conducted with the University of California San Francisco and funded by the San Francisco Department of the Environment last year, Zabble (AI waste management app) sought to answer questions about the minimum required sample size for reliably estimating waste contamination. The study was based on a 6-month experiment conducted at […]
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A solar power company location in Shanghai, China discovered that their manufacturing process was producing unacceptable levels of variability in the thickness of their silicon nitride films. They needed to control the thickness of the film to improve the solar cells’ surface energy efficiency levels. Using statistical analysis, they were able to pinpoint and rectify […]
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Jim Oskins from Minitab shares a real-world use case where a government agency turned 60,000+ nitrate tests into actionable insights, cutting analysis time from months to minutes. These tests are needed to quickly identify the cause of nitrate contamination in groundwater near large farms, to ensure groundwater near residential areas did not get exposed to […]
Written by Brion
The climate emergency is not just an environmental issue, it’s the single greatest public health challenge of the 21st century, projected to cause hundreds of thousands of additional deaths globally each year. The healthcare sector itself is a significant contributor to this crisis, accounting for approximately 10% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the […]
Written by Brion
Christy Cook, co-host of the Going Zero podcast, is joined by Mike Wrathall, an sustainability strategist who’s helped organizations across sectors, from social housing to defense, navigate complexity and accelerate their impact on the environment. Mike shares his journey from a childhood passion for recycling to leading sustainability and climate strategy efforts at major firms […]
Written by Brion