Lean Sustainability

117

Chapter 6

Focused Improvement, 

Training and Education, 

and SHE

Capabilities can be extended indefinitely when everyone begins

to think.

Taiichi Ohno

1

6.1   Rationale behind Integrating 

FocusedImprovement and SHE

By integrating its focused improvement (FI) and SHE processes an organi-

zation can more effectively identify, address, and eliminate the root causes

of accidents and incidents and thereby achieve its vision of safety and

manufacturing excellence: zero accidents, zero incidents, and zero losses.

The focused improvement pillar provides powerful tools and techniques

for achieving continual improvement (Kobetsu Kaizen) through formal,

small-team problem solving that can be effectively utilized in the SHE area.

Accidents can be eliminated and safety and sustainability performance can

be improved by applying FI methodologies such as: 5-Why root cause anal-

ysis, Pareto charting, fishbone diagrams, process flow, PDCA, and CAPDo

to safety, health, and the environment. By tapping into the collective

118  ◾  Lean Sustainability

creativity and intelligence of all employees the FI process enables an orga-

nization to identify and implement new solutions to difficult and often long-

standing safety, health, and environmental challenges.

6.2  SHE Kaizens

Safety, health, and environment should be managed like all other Lean or

TPM pillars, based upon loss-tree data. Accidents and environmental inci-

dents are reactive, or after-the-fact, loss data that can be used to identify

areas that require SHE focused improvement. More importantly, information

on near misses, SHE F-tags, and behavioral observations can be considered

valuable pre-loss data or jewels that can be mined to bring real value to the

organization. Pre-loss data enable one to proactively identify improvements

that are needed to prevent accidents, incidents, and losses before they occur.

SHE F-tags provide data on unsafe conditions in need of improvement,

whereas formal safety observations provide information on at-risk behaviors

that can be addressed via kaizens.

Formal improvement or kaizen teams should be established to tackle

safety, health, and environmental issues that involve significant and chal-

lenging losses, and can best be addressed by tapping into the collec-

tive expertise of a group. SHE kaizen teams are typically established to

address chronic SHE losses that have complex and multiple causes. Each

organization should develop a kaizen register, as shown in Table6.1,

which lists the potential improvement projects covering all pillars that

can be pursued at the site. The example kaizen register lists the safety,

health, and environmental improvement projects that should be overseen

by the SHE pillar team. The register includes the name or theme of the

kaizen, a description of the project scope, an estimate of the losses that

can be eliminated by the project, the estimated cost of the project, and

the projected net savings from the project. Projects are added to the reg-

ister by the organization’s FI pillar leader based upon site loss-tree data.

Organizations committed to achieving safety, health, and environmental

excellence should ensure that some SHE improvement projects are always

included on the site’s overall kaizen register. A key role of the site’s SHE

pillar leader and team is to identify safety, health, and environmental

improvement projects and to advocate for their implementation by the

organization. The site’s Lean or continuous improvement leadership group

reviews projects on the register and approves and resources the projects.

Focused Improvement, Training and Education, and SHE  ◾  119

Table6.1  Example of a Kaizen Register

Area Pillar

Kaizen Topic/

Theme Scope Losses

Kaizen

Cost ($)

Kaizen Net

Savings ($) Time Resp.

Processing

Safety

SHE Elimination of

failure to properly

lockout equipment

All lines 10 LTAs,

$1,000,000

$50,000 $950,000 Q4 2010 B. Safe

Packaging

Health

SHE Reduction in noise

exposure

Lines 1–10 20 hearing

loss cases,

$600,000

$150,000 $450,000 Q1 2011 T. Bill

Production

Environment

SHE Reduction in site

effluent BOD

Washouts 2 fines,

1 ton product,

$800,000

$200,000 $600,000 Q2 2011 I. Green