Lean/Green integration focused on waste reduction techniques

In a context in which companies aim to optimize their social and environmental responsibility, they can adopt and combine Lean and Green strategies. This paper offers a quantitative study of Lean/Green integration focused on waste reduction techniques in manufacturing processes. The literature confirms the convergence of the concepts of Lean Manufacturing and Green Management. Specifically, Waste Reduction Techniques are considered one of the main areas of the overlap between the Lean and Green paradigms. This offers interesting possibilities for future research on the development of quantitative studies on Waste Reduction Techniques, especially for a solid waste minimization program in manufacturing. Using the Design of Experiments tool, the present study measures the influence of different methods, derived from both the Lean and Green approaches, on solid waste management performance. Based on these results, a hierarchy of progress factors for a waste minimization program in manufacturing is outlined: the 3R Hierarchy must be preferred to a deadly waste (muda) analysis and combining the 3R Hierarchy and the deadly wastes of Lean Management improves the performance of a waste minimization program in manufacturing. In addition, the use of a Lean/Green matrix -a check-list that integrates Lean and Green best practices- was shown to consistently increase the performance of a waste minimization plan and as a result, the impact on the waste reduction can be doubled. This work is of interest to practitioners because they can build upon this experience to implement a waste reduction program using a set of tools to monitor and measure the program's achievements, which can ultimately lead to balanced performance improvement in terms of environmental, social and economic dimensions.