7 Benefits of Six Sigma in Environmental Engineering

Use Six Sigma, Not a Broomstick!

Shocked??

All eyes wide open especially if you’re an environment engineer?

Is your head brimming up with questions like, How can Six Sigma be enforced into environment engineering. What link it has got to do with our stream?

Then let me give you a quick snapshot of the most important yet hidden concept which drives both Six Sigma and Environment Engineering. Lean, Six Sigma and Environmental improvement incorporate the philosophy of continual improvement achieving through the common methodology and targeting towards the same goal of “Waste Elimination”. The difference or to be more precise the created difference persists in the terminology used. When we refer to Six Sigma we use the term ‘leaks’ and when we relate it to core environment we quote it as ‘waste’. So clubbing both the terms that is Six Sigma and Environmental Engineering we end up with a common notion that strives towards the elimination of waste and thereby increase the efficiency of the system.

Since now you’re convinced enough that the terms are related and the concept is not vague enough to let you close it off let’s explore some of the benefits Six Sigma offers when incorporated within the environment. But this time let’s see them with a different angle.

Characteristic of Six Sigma Training

1. Emphasizes the need to recognize opportunities and eliminate defects.

It’s Implementation: A Baxter Healthcare facility in the U.S. Southeast conducted a value stream mapping event for three days. The aim was to identify unnecessary water usage.

Six-Sigma Yields: Development of an action plan to save water.

Result: Saved 170,000 gallons of water per day and $17000 in 3 months.

Long Term Benefit Obtained: The facility no longer needed to expand its wastewater treatment plant.

1. Implements data driven decisions, incorporates quality tools with systematic framework for problem solving.

Its Implementation: Canyon Creek Cabinet Company of United States performed stream mapping and collected data of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions.

Six Sigma Yields: Data tables compiling the results which led to the enforcement of proper quality tools and development of methodology to reduce the emissions.

Result: Reduced VOC emissions by 55,100 lbs per year.

Long Term Benefits: Decreased hazardous wastes by 84,400 lbs per year.

Theory might not have interest you but the numbers do speak for themselves here. Companies and implementations of Six Sigma into projects like these evince that environment just don’t require you to get on the streets and clean the waste but prior to that it requires an action plan, a strategy, data driven approaches and above all quality tools which result into beneficial frameworks. Because ecology is not a measurable quantity becomes a myth when we go deeper into six sigma.

So next time you listen to anyone saying Clean India, don’t hand over him a broomstick rather some Six Sigma, an added advantage could be a broomstick might even charge you a minimum of 50 bucks but Six Sigma is all about a click and then a hit!!

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