Journal of Cleaner Production 85 (2014) 226e233

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Sustainable manufacturing-greening processes using specic Lean

Production tools: an empirical observation from European motorcycle
component manufacturers
Andrea Chiarini
University of Ferrara, Via Savonarola, 9, 44121 Ferrara, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 13 April 2013
Received in revised form
1 July 2014
Accepted 29 July 2014
Available online 11 August 2014

The main objective of this research is to investigate whether or not Lean Production tools can help reduce
the environmental impacts of manufacturing companies. The research is based on empirical observation
inside ve European companies that manufacture motorcycle components and which are also committed
to Lean and environmental management. The environmental impacts of the production processes of the
ve companies were observed and measured before and after the implementation of ve Lean tools:
Value Stream Mapping (VSM), 5S, cellular manufacturing, Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) and
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). Comparison of the before and after quantitative results reveals
interesting and novel results which contribute to the research on the effects of Lean Production on
environmental impacts. In particular, VSM can be used to identify the environmental impacts of production processes. 5S can be useful for reducing oil leakage and improving waste management. Cellular
manufacturing can lead to a decrease in electricity consumption, whereas TPM can help to reduce several
impacts of the machines, such as oil leakage and emissions of dusts and chemical fumes into the atmosphere. By contrast, no signicant improvement in environmental impacts was measured after
implementation of SMED. The result of this empirical research also revealed other interesting positive
effects concerning electricity consumption in general as well as standardization of activities and worker
behavior. The originality of this research lies in observing and measuring the effects on environmental
impacts of the implementation of ve Lean tools, inviting further research toward a general model of
Lean Production for the greening of production processes.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Lean production
Environmental management
Environmental impacts
Lean tools

1. Introduction
For the past few decades Lean Production has been considered a
well-consolidated strategy for cutting down costs, especially costs
related to production processes. Lean Production stems from the
so-called Toyota Production System (TPS); a term coined by
Womack et al. (1991). Researching inside the automotive sector and
comparing results with the performance of the excellent car
manufacturer Toyota, Womack et al. reported on seven particular
wastes to be avoided in production processes. According to Ohno
(1988), former Executive Vice President at Toyota who can be
considered the founder of TPS, these seven wastes are:
- Overproduction
- Excessive inventory

E-mail addresses: andrea.chiarini@unife.it, andrea.chiarini@chiarini.it.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.07.080
0959-6526/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transportation
Unnecessary motion
Defects
Waiting and delay
Overprocessing.

By avoiding the seven wastes a company can reduce its production costs and accelerate product lead-time inside a plant layout
(Chiarini, 2012a; Chiarini, 2013d).
Lean Production offers several tools to help companies reduce
wastes. It is out of the scope of this paper to investigate in what
ways these tools affect the wastes. The most important Lean Production tools are Value Stream Mapping (VSM) for identifying the
wastes in plant layout (Rother and Shook, 2003), 5S for setting in
order and cleaning up workplaces (Brunet and New, 2003), cellular
manufacturing for grouping machines and workplaces (Ohno,
1988), Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) for reducing machine set-ups (Shingo, 1989) and Total Productive Maintenance

A. Chiarini / Journal of Cleaner Production 85 (2014) 226e233

(TPM) for reducing failures of the machines and equipment

(Monden, 1998).
Some authors (see Section 2) claim that Lean Production seems
also to have effects on the reduction of environmental impacts such
as emissions into the air, water and soil, as well as efciency of water
and energy consumption. In fact, every time a Lean tool or principle
is applied, there are also benets concerning environmental management. However, it is not clear exactly what kind of relationship
exists between a specic Lean tool and the environmental impacts
and whether or not this relationship can be measured.
In this research, case studies based on empirical observation
within ve manufacturers of motorcycle components were conducted to illuminate the debate on using Lean tools as a vehicle for
reducing environmental impacts within particular production
processes. The observed companies have been managing Lean
Production and an environmental management system according
to the ISO 14001 standard (ISO, 2004) for about ve years, starting
from 2008. In each company the effect of specic Lean tools (i.e.
VSM, 5S, SMED, cellular manufacturing and TPM) on environmental
impacts has been measured in order to conrm the ndings that
Lean tools reduce impacts on the environment.
The next section will review the literature to assess the current
knowledge on Lean and environmental management or green
management. The ve case studies are described in Section 3 as
well as the methodology and the theoretical ndings derived from
the literature review. The quantitative results will be presented and
discussed in Section 4. Conclusions are drawn in Section 5 as well as
the practical implications and limitations of this research with an
agenda for further research.

227

Saizarbitoria et al., 2011; Seuring, 2011; Hajmohammad et al.,

2013; Chiarini, 2013a; Des et al., 2013; Shukla et al., 2013). For the
scope of this research only the most signicant papers in terms of
integration and mutual benets have been taken into account.
King and Lenox (2001) demonstrated that Lean Production can
reduce the costs of pollution and in particular it is complementary
to waste and pollution reduction. Their paper is based on a quantitative inquiry carried out within a sample of US companies from
1991 to 1996. The results validated hypotheses which correlated
the Lean Production efforts of a company to its environmental
management practices. However, the research did not investigate
in what way and through which Lean tools a company can improve
its environmental performance. Indeed, the authors invited others
to investigate this direction.
In an on-line published document the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) presented their ndings from research carried
out in four American companies by means of observations (EPA,
2003). The research underlined how Lean Production can be
taken into account to improve environmental performance. The
research can still be considered the most exhaustive on the subject.
The most important results of this research are (EPA, 2003, p. 5),
Lean produces an operational and cultural environment that is
highly conducive to waste minimization and pollution prevention.
Lean can be leveraged to produce more environmental improvement, lling key blind spots that can arise during Lean
implementation.
Lean experiences regulatory friction around environmentally
sensitive processes.

2. Literature review
There are many papers dedicated to Lean Production (Ohno,
1988; Shah and Ward, 2007) and its tools and a review would be
beyond the scope of this research. The papers mainly investigate
how Lean can reduce the lead time of processes to avoid the abovementioned seven wastes.
Many authors have suggested the investigation of new strategies and tools to increase environmental performance. According to
these authors, strategies such as ISO 14001 certication, Life-Cycle
Assessment (LCA), waste management, reuse and reproduction, to
mention but a few, should be integrated and supported by other
manufacturing management systems (Zeng et al., 2010; Lucas,
2010; Jiang et al., 2011; Illge and Preuss, 2012; Spetic et al., 2012;
Enderle et al., 2012; Guziana and Dobers, 2012; Fujii et al., 2013;
Guoyou et al., 2013; Cheah et al., 2013; Van Hoof and Lyon, 2013;
Chiarini, 2013c; Bracci and Maran, 2013). However, these authors
did not directly suggest the implementation of Lean Production or
of its tools and principles.
By contrast, there are few papers which directly explore the
relationship between Lean Production and environmental or green
management. In the 1990s some authors (Romn, 1994; NEPI, 1999;
Vickers, 2000) started investigating the subject. For the rst time,
through observational case studies, these authors noticed a relationship between the two systems. However, in these rst papers
the relationship was not explored.
However, at the beginning of 2000s a more relevant debate on
the topic started. Indeed, research about the integration of Lean
agile systems and environmental sustainability of the supply chain
seems to have become more prolic as many papers demonstrate
(King and Lenox, 2001; EPA, 2003; Larson and Greenwood, 2004;
Hansen et al., 2004; Kleindorfer et al., 2005; Welford and Frost,
2006; Kainuma and Tawara, 2006; Venkat and Wakeland, 2006;
Bergmiller and McCright, 2009a; Carvalho and Cruz-Machado,
2009; Mollenkopf et al., 2010; Thun and Mller, 2010; Heras-

In the paper, the EPA also discussed an interesting table in which

they create a correlation between the seven Lean wastes and the
environmental impacts they can create. An extract from this table is
shown in Table 1.

Table 1
Environmental impacts linked with manufacturing waste (source: EPA, 2003).
Waste type

Environmental impact

Defects

Raw materials consumed in making defective products

Defective components require recycling or disposal
More space required for rework and repair, increasing
energy use for heating, cooling, and lighting
Potential material spoilage or component damage causing
waste
Wasted energy from heating, cooling, and lighting during
production downtime
More raw materials consumed in making the unneeded
products
Extra products may spoil or become obsolete requiring
disposal
More energy use for transport
Emissions from transport
More space required for work-in-process (WIP)
movement, increasing lighting, heating, and cooling
demand and energy consumption
More packaging required to protect components during
movement
More packaging to store WIP
Waste from deterioration or damage to stored WIP
More materials needed to replace damaged WIP
More energy used to heat, cool, and light inventory space
More parts and raw materials consumed per unit of
production
Unnecessary processing increases wastes, energy use, and
emissions
Fewer suggestions of pollution and waste minimization
opportunities

Waiting

Overproduction

Movement and
transportation

Inventory

Complexity and
overprocessing

Unused creativity

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A. Chiarini / Journal of Cleaner Production 85 (2014) 226e233

This complex and deep research undoubtedly demonstrated

that Lean tools and principles positively affect environmental
management. Furthermore, quantitative ndings from the case
studies are presented and discussed. However, after having
analyzed each Lean tool, the research lacks explanations about how
the tools and principles can be used to reduce the quantied
environmental impacts.
Larson and Greenwood (2004) studied the general benets
introduced by Lean implementation on supply chain management
and industrial activities. According to the authors, Lean can
improve resource productivity, reducing the amount of energy,
water, raw materials, and non-product output associated with
production processes, minimizing the ecological impact of the
production activities.
Hansen et al. (2004) and Kleindorfer et al. (2005) come to the
same conclusions of a general mutual benet between Lean and
environmental management. Nevertheless, they did not explore a
specic relationship among Lean tools and environmental impacts.
Bergmiller and McCright in three dedicated papers (2009a;
2009b; 2009c) analyzed some parallelisms between Lean Production and green operations in manufacturing companies. In the rst
paper (2009a) the authors concluded that the two systems can be
synergic in improving environmental aspects and impacts such as
recycling, remanufacturing, resource consumption, returnable
packaging and waste management. Indeed, the authors in the
conclusions suggested that (Bergmiller and McCright, 2009a, p. 6):
an important area for additional research is developing a
comprehensive, integrated model for the simultaneous implementation of Lean and Green Systems through one coordinated
effort
In the second paper (Bergmiller and McCright, 2009b) the
same authors investigated the above mentioned parallelisms in
more depth. Once more the conclusions were that there is a
synergistic union between Lean and green operations. However,
the authors' research (2009b) was more focused on the correlations between green management and Lean results rather than
the vice versa. In fact, the authors found that green operations
drive Lean results, particularly cost performance and human resources dedicated to waste reduction. Again, as a nal suggestion,
Bergmiller and McCright (2009b) fostered further research
dedicated to the integration of these two systems. In a third
paper Bergmiller and McCright (2009c) concluded that Lean
plants are signicantly greener than the general manufacturing
population.
VSM is a typical Lean tool by which managers can draw and map
all the plant layout processes for making the product from raw
materials to shipping (Rother and Shook, 2003). After having
mapped the production processes managers can identify the seven
wastes and quantify them. In the same way, Wills (2009, p. 8)
suggested that managers using an Environmental VSM would be
able to identify the seven environmental wastes: energy, water,
materials, garbage, transportation, emission and biodiversity.
Simons and Mason (2003) reached similar conclusions, even if their
concept of Environmental VSM was slightly different from Rother
and Shook's (2003) original version. However, the authors did not
explain how to reduce the seven environmental wastes by means of
Lean tools and principles.
Simpson and Samson (2010) researched environmental strategies for low waste operations. In their literature review (Simpson
and Samson, 2010, p. 106), the authors highlighted how advanced
manufacturing systems (i.e. use of practices such as Lean.
Just-In-Time or Total Quality Management) have a positive inuence on environmental performance.

More recently, Des et al. (2013) wrote a paper concerning the

relationship between Green and Lean. The authors conducted a
similar literature review and reached the same conclusion: there is
a positive and strong synergy between the two worlds. Moreover,
their inquiry demonstrated an overlap between Green and Lean
made up of attributes such as waste and waste reduction tools,
people and organization, lead-time reduction, supply chain relationship and service level key performance indicators (Des et al.,
2013, p. 99).
From the literature review, it can be claimed that Lean implementation can have benets on, and synergies with, the environmental management of production processes. In particular,
Bergmiller and McCright (2009a; 2009b; 2009c) through quantitative inquiries demonstrated these synergies although they did
not directly explore the relationships between specic Lean tools
and environmental benets. Some authors have also discussed VSM
as a specic Lean tool for identifying and classifying environmental
impacts. However, it is not yet clear what inuence, and how much,
the majority of Lean tools and principles such as VSM, 5S, cellular
manufacturing, SMED and TPM, have on environmental
management.
3. Methodology
This research is based on multiple case studies. Five European
manufacturing companies in the motorcycle components sector
have been chosen on the following criteria:
- The companies have similar products, production processes and
size. This allows the environmental impacts of their
manufacturing processes to be compared. For instance, all the
companies are suppliers of the motorcycle sector and they
manufacture mechanical components for customers such as
Aprilia, BMW, Honda and Piaggio. The companies have a mix of
assembly lines and typical machines for working plastic such as
injection presses. The companies each have approximately 100
employees. None of these companies have machines for working chemicals with critical environmental impacts. The main
impacts of the ve companies are garbage, energy consumption,
oil spillage, exhausted oils and emissions of fumes and dust.
- The companies are all in the European Union (EU) area. In this
way they are all subject to the same EU environmental legislation. In particular, they are subject to a series of directives
concerning waste management and atmospheric emissions
(European Commission, 2008).
- The companies are committed to environmental strategies.
Indeed, each company has managed to obtain ISO 14001 certication since 2008. In addition, each year they publish online an
environmental balance and policy in which they quantify all the
environmental performances along with the related investments. Hence, all the companies are used to measuring the
environmental impacts and performances, and correlating the
results with the efforts and investments carried out, including
Lean projects. Even if the results from Lean applications have
been measured, there is at present no link with the environmental policies in place derived from ISO 14001 certication.
Lean Production has been launched with the intention of
increasing efciency. Incidentally, the companies have noticed a
positive impact on environmental performance as well.
- The companies are very committed to Lean Production. Since
2008 they have implemented all the typical Lean tools, from
VSM to TPM. The savings from Lean implementation are usually
measured and compared over time.
- In each company, ve kinds of Lean tools have been applied:
VSM for identifying the waste and environmental impacts in the

A. Chiarini / Journal of Cleaner Production 85 (2014) 226e233

processes; 5S for setting in order, cleaning up and standardizing

the workplace; cellular manufacturing for grouping workplaces
and machines; SMED for reducing machine set-up; and TPM for
improving machine maintenance.
- Lean tool application has been observed in very similar workplaces or machines inside the plant layout. This allowed the
researcher to compare similar environmental results. For
instance, the machines chosen for the Lean tool were roughly
the same type. They manufacture the same products using the
same raw materials and have the same environmental impacts.
During the last year an empirical exploratory research inside the
ve companies has been carried out to enrich the debate that
emerges from the literature review to generate new theory.
Empirical research is based on observation and measured events
and brings forth knowledge from actual experience rather than
from established theories (Bryman, 2004).
In each company, ve Lean tools have been implemented over
one year in similar plant layout areas (e.g. an assembly line or
similar press machine) and the environmental improvements
have been measured using specic units over the following six
months. The companies launched the ve Lean tools almost at
the same time, considering that this was a specic request from
their customers. In each company, data and information have
been gathered and provided by the managers in charge of
environmental management. The researcher asked them for
specic data and information useful for this research and related
to ve theoretical ndings from the literature review described
in the next paragraph. The data gathered have been compared in
order to understand whether the effect of the Lean tool has been
the same in all the ve companies. The mean and standard deviation have been calculated for each environmental impact.
Furthermore, a direct observation of the implementation of the
specic Lean tool was used to understand the causes of the
correlation.
From the literature review some theoretical ndings emerged
that can be taken under consideration for a deeper investigation
through the exploratory case studies. In particular from the literature review it seems that:
F1 e VSM can be used as a tool for mapping and identifying
environmental impacts in the processes of the plant layout.
F2 e 5S when fully implemented and managed can affect environmental impacts in a positive way.
F3 e Cellular manufacturing when fully implemented and
managed can affect environmental impacts in a positive way.
F4 e SMED when fully implemented and managed can affect
environmental impacts in a positive way.

229

F5 e TPM when fully implemented and managed can affect

environmental impacts in a positive way.
The next section summarizes and discusses the results from the
empirical observation of the implementation of the Lean tools and
compares the results with the ndings from the literature review.
4. Observations and discussion
4.1. VSM implementation and environmental impacts
The literature review has demonstrated that a Value Stream
Map can be implemented for identifying the environmental impacts of each process of the plant layout. According to Wills (2009)
a particular VSM, called Environmental VSM, can be drawn using
the same icons of the original VSM proposed by Rother and Shook
(2003). For instance, Fig. 1 shows an Environmental VSM that one of
the ve companies drew. The ow in the gure illustrates the
linked processes for making a family of products, from the raw
material to the shipping to the customers. Below each process there
is a data box which contains the environmental impacts of the
process. For instance, the press can leak on average 6 L of oil in a
month and emit 1 part per million of fumes in the atmosphere. In
each of the ve companies a similar map has been observed. Every
company is used to drawing the Environmental VSM before
applying Lean tools and after having applied the tools in order to
compare the improvements achieved over time.
Thence, the theoretical nding F1 from the literature review can
be conrmed. The companies have been successfully implementing
VSM as a tool for mapping and identifying environmental impacts
in the processes of the plant layout.
4.2. 5S implementation e observed environmental benets
5S is usually structured by ve precise steps. These steps are:
separating, setting in order, shining and cleaning up, standardizing
and sustaining (Chiarini, 2013b). In each of the ve companies the
observation took place in an assembly line where 5S were applied
in the same way. 5S had not previously been implemented in the
ve assembly lines.
Table 2 shows the activities put in place by the means of 5S tool.
In particular, the column on the left lists only those activities that
positively affect the environmental impacts of the assembly lines. It
is important to notice that the actions were the same for all the ve
companies and produced similar quantiable benets.
By means of 5S, the companies introduced a specic identication of the different kinds of garbage using highly visible and
identiable bins. Each bin now has a different color and it is placed

Fig. 1. Example of an applied environmental value stream map.

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A. Chiarini / Journal of Cleaner Production 85 (2014) 226e233

Table 2
Environmental benets observed by applying 5S.

Table 3
Environmental benets observed by applying cellular manufacturing.

5S activity

Environmental benets observed

Cellular manufacturing activity

Environmental benet observed

Better identication and

separation of the
different kinds of industrial
garbage (plastic, metal,
cardboard, oiled rag and solvent)

1. Reduction of mistakes during the

separate collection of garbage in
compliance with European Waste
Catalogue coding
2. Reduction of shop-oor space for
manufacturing activities
1. Reduction of greased and solvent
rags as a waste
2. Reduction of leakage on the oor

Grouping the machine

and equipment in a single cell

Reduction of material transportations

towards the cell. This implies a saving of
electricity for recharging the batteries of
the electric truck

Adoption of a new standard

drip tray for solvent
and oil containers

in a precise area delimited by colored strips on the ground. The bins

are close to the workplace in order to avoid movements of the
operators. This generated in the following six months of observation, after the 5S implementation, an interesting reduction of
mistakes during the separate collection of wastes in accordance to
the European Waste Catalogue coding (European Commission,
1993). Indeed, in the previous six months, three out of ve companies mixed about 30% of the different kinds of garbage, in
particular plastic with cardboard. After 5S implementation the
percentage of mixed garbage was around zero in all the companies.
According to Ohno (1988), 5S as well as cellular manufacturing can
reduce oor space for the manufacturing activities. This can lead to
lower infrastructure energy and even land use. This aspect is
sometimes taken for granted; usually it is not properly measured
from the consumptions saving point of view. In fact, this aspect is
more measured from the point of view of construction costs.
As a second important action, the companies introduced a new
standardized drip tray for solvent and oil containers. This led, rst
of all, to a drastic reduction in the leakage from the workplace to
the oor. According to Table 6, which summarizes the quantitative
results in terms of environmental benets, in the six months
following 5S implementation the ve companies had almost no
leakage at all in the workplace. Only two companies had negligible
leakage of 0.3 and 0.4 L per month compared to 3.8 and 4.0 L before
5S implementation.
Furthermore, the application of a standardized drip tray also
reduced the quantity of rags used in cases of leakage. The greased
rags or those soaked by solvent are typical garbage which has to be
collected and treated. As Table 6 shows, after 5S implementation,
the quantity of rags over a month decreased signicantly, especially
greased rags.
5S usually reduces the wastes categorized by Lean Production
and Table 1 as defects and overprocessing (Chiarini, 2012b). In this
way the implementation of 5S in the ve companies also demonstrated the reduction of the environmental impacts according to
the EPA's classication shown in Table 1.
To summarize, the theoretical nding F2 concerning the positive
effect of 5S tool on environmental impacts has been successfully
analyzed and accepted.
4.3. Cellular manufacturing implementation and the environmental
impacts
Cellular manufacturing is a Lean tool for grouping machines,
workplaces and staff dedicated to similar products in a single cell,
rather than having them in different places of the plant layout
(Aghajani et al., 2012). By means of a particular u-shape, the
workplaces and machines in the cell are placed very close to one
another to save space and time. The handling and transportation of
materials can, in this way, be easily reduced.
All the ve companies implemented similar cells in many points
of the plant layout achieving in this case a reduction of energy

consumption of the electric trucks. Indeed, having grouped different

machines and workplaces the transportation path among the stations was drastically reduced. As illustrated in Table 3, this implied a
less frequent recharge of the batteries of the electric trucks and ultimately a reduction in electricity consumption. For instance, Table 6
illustrates a reduction of 68% in terms of kilowatt per hour due to
battery recharge in a month for the rst company.
Cellular manufacturing usually reduces the wastes categorized
by Lean Production and Table 1 as motion and transportation
(Chiarini, 2012b). In this way the implementation of cellular
manufacturing in the ve companies also demonstrated a reduction of the environmental impacts according to the EPA's classication in Table 1, in particular the electricity consumption.
To summarize, the nding F3 concerning the positive effect of
cellular manufacturing tool on environmental impacts has been
successfully analyzed and accepted.
4.4. SMED implementation and the environmental impacts
SMED is a tool invented in Toyota by Shingo (1989) in the 1960s; it
is one of the most used Lean tools. SMED helps a company to reduce
set-up times when the production of a product is stopped and
another product is started at which time, for instance, an operator
might have to change the mold or die. The tool is based on a better
organization of the activities for changing the parts of the machine
and mold and regulating it. In addition, physical modication of the
machine and the mold should be made to reduce installation times.
There is no doubt that SMED is very effective for reducing set-up
times and increasing productivity. However, the application of
SMED within the ve companies seemed to have a weak effect on
reducing environmental impacts. Table 4 summarizes the effects
related to SMED implementation.
As a matter of fact, some managers stated that having shortened
set-up times could have some effects in terms of machine standby
time. This would reduce non-value adding standby energy use of
equipment, lights and ventilation. However, none of the ve companies has actually measured this particular benet and probably it
depends on the kind of machine. Hence, the theoretical nding F4
that SMED can affect environmental impacts in a positive way
cannot be either rejected or accepted and needs further
investigation.
4.5. TPM implementation and the environmental impacts
TPM is a complete management system made up of different
tools and principles invented in Japan (Ohno, 1988) in the 1960s for
Table 4
Environmental benets observed by applying SMED.
SMED activity

Environmental benet observed

Preparing molds, screws and

fasteners in advance for
the machine set-up

Reduction of the time for looking for the

components with insignicant reduction
of electricity consumption of the
electric truck
Reduction of the time for installing and
regulating the mold inside the press.
No signicant environmental benets
observed

Modication of the mold

connections to the
press machine

A. Chiarini / Journal of Cleaner Production 85 (2014) 226e233

decreased, and this was particularly due to the more effective

maintenance of the lters, piping and chimney of the machines.
Table 6 shows the reduction in terms of milligrams per cubic meter
inside the ve company plants.
Some managers of the ve companies also argued that TPM
could affect equipment energy consumption, especially in the cells.
Indeed they noticed that TPM helps to turn off the energy users in a
cell and in the equipment in general. This will lower non-value
adding standby energy use, although without affecting standby
time. This is an interesting improvement introduced by TPM that
the managers are quite sure has to be taken into consideration.
However, they concluded that it is very difcult to measure this
electricity saving because electricity meters are not usually dedicated to a single cell or machine.
Therefore, the theoretical nding F5 concerning the positive
effect of TPM on environmental impacts has been successfully
measured and conrmed.

Table 5
Environmental benets observed by the application of TPM.
TPM activity

Benet observed

Daily autonomous maintenance by

the operators on the machine
(lubrications, cleanliness of the
lters, inspection of the
instrumentations on the machine, etc.)
Denition of a xed frequency for
maintaining or replacing critical
parts of the machine

Relevant reduction of oil leakage

on the oor (especially at the
base of the machine)

231

Reduction of dust and fume

emissions such as volatile organic
compounds, isocyanates and
ammonia

reducing machine stoppages in particular due to failures. TPM is

managed at two important levels. The rst and basic level is called
autonomous maintenance. Operators every day have to clean the
machine and perform basic maintenance such as topping up oil
levels, cleaning lters and checking pressure, temperature, and so
on of the machine. At a more engineering level, supervisors collect
data related to the failure frequencies for setting a preventive
maintenance program.
Does TPM affect environmental impacts? All the ve companies
had never implemented TPM before. A press for plastic products
was the rst machine in which TPM was implemented. After six
months of implementation the companies observed and measured
several positive effects as Table 5 shows. The actions taken for
implementing TPM were carried out at the same time. For instance,
while the operators started autonomous daily maintenance of the
machine, the engineers collected data and decided the frequencies
of maintenance and/or replacement of the critical parts of the
machine. In this way, all these actions led to important benets to
the environmental impacts and it was not possible to distinguish
the contribution of a single activity.
According to Tables 5 and 6, in the six months following the
introduction of TPM, several relevant benets were observed. The
benets can be classied into two specic categories. The rst is
related to the reduction of leakage from the machine to the oor.
Effective daily maintenance by the operators and scheduled
maintenance to the parts of the machine in these companies
dramatically reduced the leakage level to almost zero. In addition,
all the companies observed a reduction of the atmosphere emissions in terms of dusts and fumes. The press for plastic products
usually heats up a plastic compound melting it in the mold. This
produces emissions through chimneys of dusts, volatile organic
compounds, isocyanates and ammonia. All the companies were
already below the targets required by EU laws. The emissions

4.6. Further discussion of the gathered data

All the ndings from the literature review, excluding the one
related to SMED implementation, have been successfully measured
and conrmed. Table 6 demonstrates the improvements achieved
through the different Lean tools comparing the measurements of
the environmental impacts before and after their implementation.
At rst glance this can be immediately understood by comparing
the before and after columns which contain the means (m) of the
values measured inside the ve companies (from C1 to C5).
Table 6 also brings to light other relevant information deserving of
discussion. Specically, the table presents the standard deviation of
the values (s) before and after the Lean tools implementation. In the
majority of cases, the standard deviation before the implementation
was signicantly higher than after the implementation. The reduction is partially due the decrease of the mean value of measured
impact; however, there is also the effect of a clear standardization of
the work activities and worker behavior. In fact, during the observation in the ve companies it was noticed that Lean tool implementation introduces strict rules and procedures to be followed by
the workers, which avoids causes of variability in the process.
Consequently, the environmental impacts measured after Lean
implementation are less statistically scattered than before.
5. Conclusions
The ndings of the literature review show that Lean implementation, in general, brings benets to environmental

Table 6
Measurement of the environmental benets before and after implementation of Lean tools.
Lean tool

Impact

Unit

Before implementation of the tool

C1

5S

Greased rags
Rags for solvent
Oil leakage on the oor
Cellular
Electricity consumption
manufacturing of the truck
SMED
Electricity consumption
of the truck
TPM
Oil leakage on the oor
Dispersed dusts in
the layout
Volatile organic
compounds
Isocyanate emissions
Ammonia emissions

kg/month
1.1
kg/month
0.8
L/month
3.8
Kwh/month 121

After implementation of the tool

C2

C3

C4

C5

2
0.7
4
116

1.8
1.9
3.1
117

2.2
2
3.9
128

1.7
1.1
1.1
110

1.76
1.425
3.18
118.4

0.4159327 0.3
0.6291529 0.1
1.2153189 0.4
6.6558245 38

C1

C2

C3

C4

C5

0.4
0.2
0.3
41

0.6
0.2
0.1
36

0.3
0.2
0
39

0.3
0.2
0.1
40

0.38
0.18
0.18
38.8

0.130384
0.0447214
0.1643168
1.9235384

Kwh/month

0.1

0.2

0.1

0.1

0.2

0.15

0.057735

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.2

0.12 0.0447214

L/month
mg/m3

5.1
9.1

3.8
9

2.6
6.4

4.8
3.1

4.2
2.3

4.1
5.98

0.9797959
3.1964042

0.3
2.3

0.2
2.4

0.4
2.2

0.4
1.9

0.4
2

0.34 0.0894427
2.16 0.2073644

11.4

14.2

11.6

17.3

2.3979158

8.9

8.8

9.1

8.96 0.1140175

0.02
4.1

0.02
4.1

0.01
3.9

0.03
5.2

0.02
4.3

0.02 0.0070711
4.32 0.5118594

mg/m3
mg/m3
mg/m3

0.06
6.7

0.07
6.4

Ci Company i result; m mean of the values; s standard deviation.

14
0.04
6.3

0.04
12.4

0.02
4.5

13.7

0.046 0.0194936
7.26 3.0005

232

A. Chiarini / Journal of Cleaner Production 85 (2014) 226e233

management. Some authors have started researching one of the

many tools that Lean offers to manufacturing companies called
VSM. Starting from the conclusions drawn from the literature review, ve theoretical ndings were analyzed, measured and
empirically tested, trying in this way to add further theory to the
scientic debate. In fact, a precise theoretical framework concerning Lean tools and environmental benets did not emerge from the
literature review. In this research, VSM as a tool for identifying
environmental impacts has been analyzed as well as the measurable effects of 5S, cellular manufacturing, SMED and TPM on the
environmental impacts. In this way this research, for the rst time,
goes beyond some limitations which emerged from the literature
review. In particular in-depth papers, such as the EPA's (2003), lack
explanations about how the specic Lean tools and principles can
be used to reduce the quantied environmental impacts. This
represents the main contribution to the extant literature on the
subject. New ground concerning the relationships between Lean
tools and environmental performances has been broken.
Interesting results from this research bring food for thought to
academics and practitioners.
Through the results of this paper a deeper debate concerning
the typology of Lean tools for the different environmental impacts
can start.
The theory that VSM can be used for identifying environmental
impacts has been once more accepted according to the interesting
results achieved. The ve companies also use VSM to measure the
improvement of environmental performances over time. Furthermore, the reduction of environmental impacts after applying 5S,
cellular manufacturing and TPM has been measured. By means of
5S implementation, a relevant decrease in oil leakage on the oor
has been observed and measured. Cellular manufacturing has led to
a reduction in electricity consumption for trucks. TPM has reduced
several environmental impacts, in particular oil leakage and emissions of dust and chemicals into the atmosphere. The reduction of
these environmental impacts agrees also with the EPA's classication in Table 1. However, as for SMED implementation, unexpectedly, no signicant environmental improvements were measured
in the ve companies, although a probable reduction in electricity
consumption linked to machine standby times was not measured.
Moreover, the quantitative results show also a relevant decrease
in the standard deviations of the measurements of the environmental impacts of the ve companies. The causes seem related to a
greater standardization of the rules and the behavior of the
workers.
This research has also brought to light qualitative results not
directly measured and conrmed; these issues are worth further
and deeper investigation. For instance, 5S seems to have a positive
correlation with energy consumptions due to a reduction in the
space dedicated to manufacturing activities. A similar reduction in
energy consumption is also related to TPM implementation. In
particular the reduction could be linked to non-value adding
standby energy use.
In conclusion, Lean tools are effective at improving environmental impacts even though some tools are more effective than
others, and that other less measurable aspects can affect the results
as well.
The results of this research are very important for academics
and practitioners as well. Academics for the rst time can realize a
quantiable correlation between Lean tools and environmental
impacts. Lean can become an investigable model for greening
production processes. Practitioners can now implement the
analyzed Lean tools and their activities for improving the environmental performances of the plant layouts they are managing.
However, some limitations should be kept in mind. First and
foremost, the research has been carried out in ve companies

which manufacture motorcycle components. Therefore, the results

could be different in other sectors. For instance, it is not that clear
whether or not SMED could have a positive effect on electricity
consumption. Further quantitative research for understanding
whether or not these results are the same in different industries
and how to make them generalizable is needed. For example, due to
the similar processes, these results could probably be extended to
the automotive sector in general.
Practitioners could carry out the implementation of Lean tools
in different case study sectors and in different countries where
legislation is different from the strict legislation of the EU. Academics could investigate whether it is possible to shape a general
Lean Green model for improving environmental performance. For
instance, the model should propose different categories of environmental impacts in different sectors, linking them with the
specic Lean tools which can reduce them.

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