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186 • Green Project Management

from the U.S. state of Idaho, where it is excavated from deep open-pit
mines—a process that also unearths cadmium and radioactive thorium.
Round-the-clock, the mining company in Idaho uses the same amount
of electricity as a city of 100,000 people in order produce food-grade
phosphorous. The caffeine is shipped from a chemical manufacturer
to the syrup manufacturer in England. In England, consumers discard
84% of all cans, which means that the overall rate of aluminum waste,
after counting production losses, is 88%. The United States still gets
three-fifths of its aluminum from virgin ore, at twenty times the energy
intensity of recycled aluminum, and throws away enough aluminum to
replace its entire commercial aircraft fleet every three months.

We realize that this is a manufacturing process—an operation, and not
a project—but we think it illustrates where a PM may be able to have a
say in the reduction of waste, if the PM can become a change agent in the
creation of the manufacturing process or if the PM can set an example in
their projects that can be emulated by operations planning people in the
organization.

5s 7

Let’s look at one of these Lean methods, “5S.” This method actually focuses
on a well-lit, well-labeled, well-cleaned workplace. We all sense that we’d
work more efficiently (and have less waste) if our activities were more
effective because, for example, we can see what we’re doing, know where
all of the components for the work are located, and don’t have to look for
documents or other items that are buried under other documents or items.
The 5S method, which is Japanese in origin, uses these 5 “S” words (start-
ing with S in Japanese and in loosely translated English):

Seiri → Sort
Seiton → Straighten
Seiso → Shine
Seiketsu → Standardize
Shitsuke → Sustain

Let’s look at these in some detail (Figure 10.1):