In this podcast, I interviewed Jorge Perez, who is the President & CEO of YMCA of Greater Cincinnati. Early in his career, he helped students into college and keep them from getting into drugs, gangs and dropping out of school. He realized that getting to the root cause of the issue (not having a support structure) would be more impactful, which eventually led him to the YMCA. He obtained his Six Sigma Green Belt and Black Belt certification and started applying these methods to his work...

In today’s episode, I share a presentation from the IISE Seattle conference on May 23, 2022. Joshua Fowler from Romac Industries starts off the presentation by giving some background on the project that I was involved with as the lean consultant, and Michael Johnson from Lean Environment Inc. discusses the technical solutions applied to reduce wastewater by 50%, with cost savings of $50,000 in 2021. You can also watch the video of this presentation at...

In today’s episode, I interviewed Elisabeth Swan, who has over 30 years of process improvement experience with a great background working for consulting firms like Rath & Strong and Pivotal Resources. She has lots of experience working with nonprofits, government, hospitality, healthcare, entertainment (including work on “Saved by the Bell”), and the for-profit sector. She teaches Lean and Six Sigma at the University of California-San Diego (UCSD), is the co-host of the podcast and video...

In today’s episode, I interviewed Tracy O’Rourke, who has over 20 years of process improvement experience, working with nonprofits, government, education, military and the for-profit sector. She teaches Lean and Six Sigma at the University of California-San Diego (UCSD), is the co-host of the podcast and video series, Just-in-Time Cafe (with Elisabeth Swan), and is a co-author of the book, The Problem-Solver’s Toolkit: A Surprisingly Simple Guide to Your Lean Six Sigma Journey. You can...

In today’s episode, I share the interview I had with D.J. Vagnetti, host of the Environmentally Conscious Nation podcast. I don’t think his podcast is still active, otherwise I would recommend listening directly to the episode. This interview assumes that the audience doesn’t know much about process improvement or Lean or Six Sigma, so if you know someone who cares about the environment, it might be a good episode for them to hear. If you enjoy this podcast, please follow us on...

Today I recapped the last year, and give some insights into my plans for 2022. It’s a shorter episode than usual, so hopefully you have time to listen to it during the holidays. I recap the past podcast episodes that I released, along with ones I was interviewed on. I also discuss the LeanSixSigmaForGood.com and LeanSixSigmaEnvironment.org website updates, discuss nonprofit volunteer work with Lean Portland, my client work related to environmental reductions and work with nonprofits...

Our guest is Hugh Alley, an experienced lean practitioner and industrial engineer, who has experience with the Toyota Kata method of improvement. He has recently applied this approach to a nonprofit food bank in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada called Loaves and Fishes. This approach was based on the KataLab approach developed for the food bank Moisson Montréal by Jean-Marc Legentil, Marc-Olivier Legentil and Sylvain Landry. He shares the following information during our...

My good friend Matt Horvat is the founder of Lean Portland, and has extensive experience in process improvement in various industries like Construction, Healthcare, Insurance and Consulting. He discusses why he set up Lean Portland, and shares his first pro bono volunteer projects with a nonprofit in Portland. We discuss: * his background in Industrial Engineering and his early work in the construction industry * the importance of daily huddles and management systems * how 3P...

In this podcast, I talk with Lauren Neder, Industrial Engineer and lean consultant working with nonprofit organizations as a consultant and volunteer. She shares her experience working with a nonprofit in Haiti (in person and virtually), and how she is learning how to approach nonprofit organizations with process improvement. We discuss: * how she transitioned from manufacturing to nonprofit work* how she supported a nonprofit in Haiti called Imagine Missions * what struggles...

In this podcast, I talk with Brad Jeavons, lean and Agile consultant with SA Partners. He is the host of the Enterprise Enterprise podcast. An episode we did together for his podcast will be released soon. Brad and I got along great, as we have similar passions around sustainability, the environment and social issues. During our hour-long talk, he explains: * what he really liked about the Toyota Production System (TPS) when he first learned about it* how he decided to...

In this podcast, I facilitated a webinar on engaging employees to gather innovation and improvement ideas with two agencies within the State of Colorado. The event was hosted by the Colorado Lean Network. You will first hear from Corey Niemeyer from the Colorado Department of Public Safety (CDPS) about their IDEA center, which stands for Innovation Driven by Employee Action. Then you will hear from Gary Vansuch from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) about their...

In this podcast, I interview Deondra Wardelle, whom I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know over the past year. She is a strategic thinker and consultant based in Indianapolis (Indiana) who focuses on coaching, empowering and developing individuals towards achieving their personal and professional goals. Her passion and life’s calling is using Continuous Improvement methodologies via Vision Boards to help change the lives of people by turning their dreams into reality one day at a time. She...

In this podcast, I interview Clare DiFrisco. She is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and owner/co-founder of Cannsult, a consulting firm based in the US and Australia that also offers an e-learning platform on Leadership and Lean Six Sigma. She is a hands-on practitioner, leader, coach and facilitator with many years of experience across many diverse industries. We discuss how the pandemic has allowed them to double-down on their online training platform. We also discuss her...

In this podcast, I interview Lisa Earls, who is the Senior Operational Improvement Consultant at the University of Michigan. She spent almost 5 years at the University of North Dakota before taking this new role in 2019. We discuss how she is helping teach and coach staff at the University of Michigan on lean principles using Everyday Lean Ideas and Daily Huddles. She discusses a 4-month coaching program where departments within the university system attend 4 hours of training per...

In this podcast, I interview Michael Areola, who is a Product Development consultant and Agile Coach at Cenmic Management in Katy, Texas (near Houston). He uses Agile processes and frameworks to streamline development processes, increase team efficiency, drive collaboration and reduce wasted time. He is a Project Management Professional and Agile Certified Practitioner from PMI, and holds numerous SAFe certifications from Scaled Agile. He has a masters degree in Management Information...

In this podcast, I shared a presentation that I moderated at the 2020 IISE Annual Conference. I am the Sustainable Development Division President for 2020-2021. Due to the pandemic, we originally delayed the in-person conference from May to November, but ultimately had to go 100% virtual. It was originally scheduled to be in New Orleans, and we had a volunteer event scheduled with SBP that had to be cancelled, so that was disappointing. John Corliss created and established the SDD back...

In this podcast, I interview Daniel Edds, Lean Leadership consultant and author. We discuss his work with nonprofits, government agencies and manufacturing companies. His recent focus is the importance of creating a strong leadership system to create proper structure and support of your continuous improvement methods. You can watch the full video here… Links * Daniel Edds LinkedIn* DanielEdds.com* Books:* Leveraging the Genetics of Leadership: Cracking...

In this podcast, I share a presentation I gave at the IISE Annual Virtual conference on Nov 2, 2020. I explain how I helped apply Lean and Six Sigma methods to this small sustainable business making eco-friendly wallets, business cards and other paper products on the island of Kosrae in the Federated States of Micronesia. Supporting their business helps impact the UN SDG Goal 12: Sustainable Production and Consumption You can watch the full video with slides here… To...

In this podcast, I interview Pete Iengo and Jamie Gaskill from the City of Fort Collins (Colorado, USA). The City of Fort Collins in Colorado (USA) has been on a continuous improvement journey since 2010. They made great progress on their Income-Qualified Assistance Program (IQAP) to help residents pay their utility bills, and were recognized as the 2020 winners of the IISE Excellence in Sustainable Development Award. Starting with a baseline of 10% participation in the utility...

In this episode, I share chapter 11 of the 1926 book, “Today and Tomorrow” by Henry Ford. In this chapter, he discusses how they reduced their use of wood while still increasing production. He also talks about minimizing fuel usage and reducing metal scrap. He applied his improvement methods to all aspects of his business, including ways to reduce his environmental impact. His techniques formed the basis of the modern Lean improvement system. In addition, he talks about...

In this episode, I provide more details for anyone interested in setting up a local volunteer group to provide process improvement consulting to nonprofits in your area. You can find a list of existing volunteer groups on LeanSixSigmaforGood.com I cover the following recommended steps: * Find an organizer* Find a small organizing group* Hold kickoff meeting* Setup LinkedIn Group* Promote Group* Setup first group event* Partnering with college students You can...

Chris Pletcher is the Business Developer (and “Jack of all trades”) at Finger Lakes ReUse. I met him at the 2019 Build Reuse conference in Pittsburgh, PA and saw a presentation he gave about the metrics and data he uses at the reuse store to improve sales and manage expenses. We had a lengthy discussion about the following topics: * Chris’ background in solar, deconstruction and reuse* About Finger Lakes Reuse and what they accept and resell* How they track sales and inventory...

For the 2020-2021 year, I am the President of the IISE Sustainable Development Division. The mission of the group is to help align Industrial and Systems Engineers with organizations working on the UN Sustainable Development goals. This is the 2nd interview we’ve done this year, the first one was with Bradley Miller from the University of Houston. In this podcast, we discuss some past projects to connect students with nonprofits to improve food systems in Iowa and across the...

In this podcast, I interview Brad Miller, who is Senior Professor of Practice in the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, and teaches courses in Supply Chain Management. He shares his success with teaching students how to apply lean and Six Sigma methods in their homes and at their part-time jobs, including two projects that were done with local nonprofits. This interview was conducted for the IISE Sustainable Development Division, of which I’m the current president...

In this podcast, I interview Tim Turner, who used to work at Toyota in Kentucky (TMMK) for 22 years, and has done a lot of work with nonprofits and not-for-profit organizations. He was also a co-author on Volume 2 of the Lean Six Sigma for Good book series (still in process, but available for download), and created the book, One Team on All Levels: Stories from Toyota Team Members We talked about his vast experiences and positions at Toyota, his perspective on servant leadership, how...