A Lean future for waste

Lean Manufacturing, Operational Excellence and Six-Sigma are all management tools that have been widely deployed across the UK and beyond for many years and used to great effect when seeking to hone production processes and make them more efficient.

"Big pharma" especially have benefited from implementing Lean and OpEx programmes to improve yields and reduce cycle times for instance.

However, the focus of these approaches has traditionally not been particularly well-aligned with wider resource efficiency or waste eradication and minimisation measures.

Until now.

In an effort to help businesses get more value from their waste management arrangements, Remsol are now pioneering a hybrid Lean/Resource Efficiency approach.

So, whilst assisting clients to reduce their wastes costs through structured unit rate negotiation and infrastructure optimisation, from summer 2010 customers new and old will be able to benefit from a dual focus on eradicating or minimising wasteage at source whilst ensuring that leftover waste is recycled to as great an extent possible.

Because this is based largely on a combination of Lean / OpEx and more traditional waste minimisation approaches, this twin-pronged attack will consider the whole supply chain, production cycle and external waste management together - bringing wasted energy, heat loss, packaging, raw material use, finished product losses, re-work / reprocessing, inventory, motion / transport, waiting and financial capital into focus.

This new approach is being delivered by the latest addition to the Remsol team, Godfrey Tucker.

Godfrey is a seasoned Lean / OpEx practitioner having led the implementation of Lean programmes at generic drug maker Actavis as EU Continuous Improvement director.

Although Godfrey currently operates as a freelance consultant, he has been retained by Remsol for deployment to its customers across the UK and will take over responsibility for leading a number of our continuous improvement activities in the coming months.

Godfrey is pleased to take up the challenge: "I am delighted to be partnering with Remsol who consistently demonstrate great expertise and real passion in helping customers to manage waste more efficiently, at lower costs and with improved compliance.  Extending this thinking to tackle a broader definition of waste, using a Lean Six Sigma approach, will produce even greater benefits for Remsol customers. The drive towards the elimination of all types of waste at source (rather than just recycling or reducing the cost of disposal) will be a key factor in keeping businesses ahead of their competitors, as well as introducing greener and more profitable ways of working."

The new approach is being heralded as quite a change by Remsol's managing director, Lee Petts: "Waste is an increasingly important source of savings to businesses, but many focus far too much on doing something clever to waste once it leaves the factory - particularly focused on recovery and recycling - but, by then, it's already too late," explains Lee.

"If your business doesn't already recycle, it should; and if you already recycle, you should be striving to do more. But, eradicating or reducing waste will do more to save you money and boost your 'green' performance than any amount of recycling,"

Tackling the root causes of waste in order to become more resource efficient has been a Remsol mantra since the company's launch in 2002, but this latest push and the unique combination of Lean Six Sigma / OpEx and traditional waste minimisation techniques can only serve to boost work in this area.

Lee concludes: "By fusing Lean Six Sigma methods with the continuous improvement and resource efficiency tools we already use, plus the welcome addition of Godfrey's talents to compliment the skill-set of our existing team, we hope to be able to assist our clients to reduce their costs further and faster in future."

To find out more and discover how Remsol's Lean/Resource Efficiency approach can transform your business, why not call us now for a free, no-obligation consultation? Alternatively, click here.