Implementing Total Lifecycle Product Sustainability Through True Lean Thinking

Recent expansion of the manufacturing industry’s customer requirements include product lifecycle considerations covering environmental, economic and societal concerns. Awareness for the need to implement sustainable manufacturing (SM) practice continues to grow but the implementation rate appears to be relatively slow. In cases where successful SM implementation depends on the ability to compete in the marketplace in terms of quality and cost, lean manufacturing concepts have been applied to help manage the product lifecycle. Unfortunately, most lean manufacturing applications in SM focus on the use of basic lean tools such as 5S, visual management and kanbans, etc., implemented as a series of management-directed projects or Kaizen activities without full engagement of the people doing the work. Consequently, improvements made under these conditions are often short-lived and relatively limited. True Lean benchmarks the Toyota Production System (TPS) and includes often overlooked critical operational elements aimed at developing and sustaining team member engagement for continuous improvement (CI). This paper discusses important concepts of sustainable PLM and True Lean and introduces an integrated model called the ‘Benevolent Production System’ as a guide to continuously improve total lifecycle product sustainability.