Industrial Environmental Management

8Lean Manufacturing: Zero Defect and Zero Effect: Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing

8.1 Introduction

In this chapter our major focus is on lean manufacturing of various products while applying techniques and methodologies to achieve zero defect in products, and significantly eliminate waste and discharges to environment from the manufacturing process.

The quality of products, processes, and services has become a major decision factors in most industries and businesses today. Regardless of whether the consumer is an individual, a corporation, a military defense program, or a retail store, when the consumer is making purchase decisions, he or she is likely to consider quality to be equal in importance to cost and schedule. Consequently, quality improvement has become a major concern to many US industries and businesses. Quality control and quality assurance is a critical process of producing high‐quality products that should be a top priority of any manufacturing firm in today's competitive environment. This also means designing and building products that conform to specifications and satisfy or exceed customer expectation. The American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) defines quality as “the totality of features and characteristics of a product or process or service that bear on its ability to satisfy given needs (Evans and Lindsay 1992). Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality ...