Sustainable Manufacturing Through Lean and Green Approach: Best Practices and Indicators

Abstract

To become and remain competitive, companies must adopt evolution strategies. Lean Manufacturing is one such strategy used in several industrial companies. Lean Manufacturing is based on the identification and elimination of waste in various production processes. The originality of our work consists in proposing an approach which adds environmental and social dimensions to the consideration of economic earnings received through Lean actions. Adopting a case studies research methodology, we propose an extended literature review of lean and green paradigms and benchmark the practices of industrial companies in order to measure how Lean and Green actions can be enhanced when used together. We then highlight Lean and Green indicators and the associated best practices through the entire lifecycle corresponding to the maturity level of the company.