Lean and Green are not sustainable

Events of the past month point to the unsustainability of the lean and green movements. Are we focusing on the wrong things? Let's get back to basics.

Amongst my publishing colleagues, I am on the far edge with my skepticism of the lean, green and sustainability initiatives. I've seen these kinds of things come and go before, and in the end, we always get back to the basics of good engineering and economics. The basic physical conservation laws of matter and energy applied in accordance with an appropriate ethical foundation and measured by the economic value created will produce lean, green and sustainable results as a consequence. We needn't and shouldn't focus on these issues as the goal. When we do, our limited ability to fully analyze supply chains and our limited ability to foresee unintended consequences will often have us do the wrong thing.

The recent issues with Toyota have raised questions about the Toyota Production System which is at the heart of lean manufacturing. The world's experience with the volcanic eruption in Iceland has shown that our lean supply chains can be extremely fragile. All of our best efforts at being green can be overshadowed in an instant by Nature needing to belch.

Despite all of the money spent on training for green jobs, the news media has reported that these jobs are not appearing. I don't think that this is a surprise to any of us. My definition of a green job is any job that wouldn't otherwise be done unless the government throws green at it.

A large community in Maryland just announced the termination of their recycling program because it was costing them one million dollars a year instead of saving them money. That one million dollars was being spent on time, material and energy. The material and energy balance could not have been favorable, so how can someone think that this recycling program was a good, green thing?

Lean, green, recycling, sustainability and similar 21st century progressive ideas all have merit. But spending our time and money to promote science, ethics and economics would better serve our world.

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