An environmental perspective on Lean production

To cope with the challenges of the business environment companies strive to reorganize their production with certain principles and methods in the sense of Lean Production. Whereas these measures are naturally primarily motivated by classical production objectives like cost, time, quality or flexibility, companies also face diverse originally environmentally driven challenges which also incorporate a strong economic relevance. However, methods of Lean Production are not necessarily environmentally friendly. Thus, there may exist certain conflicts in goals for companies. Against this background, this paper presents an analysis of the coherences and interdependencies between Lean Production and ecologically oriented variables specifically energy consumption. Besides the discussion of principles and methods regarding their environmental influence, a simulation approach is used to analyze the specific effects of certain Lean Production measures on economic as well as environmental variables of a manufacturing line.