Renae Hesselink's Blog

Lean 5S for Custodial – The Waste of Transportation

renaehesselink — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:50:00 +0000

Let’s talk today about the waste of transportation which is defined as moving people, materials and information around the organization. I’m going to ask you to be very observant for this one! Just observe how much time you see being spent traveling, shifting things around, immediately responding to things by dropping immediate tasks and running to do something that possibly could have waited, things that I would call “chasing your tail”. I believe we all waste transportation time. One thing that made us think about it was when gasoline for our vehicles was skyrocketing a couple of years ago now – I believe that made us think about trips we made and coordinating as many tasks as possible when traveling with our vehicles but did we go back to our old habits once the price of gasoline dropped from that high level? So your homework assignment for this week is to be observant of others, observant of your own activities and how it might related to the waste of transporation – share your findings here.

Lean 5S for Custodial – The Waste of Inventory

renaehesselink — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:18:10 +0000

Do you need excess inventory? Are your suppliers reliable? Both questions you should ask yourself when evaluating how much inventory you keep on hand of anything. Many of us keep a “just in case” excess of stock when we don’t really need to. I still see customers that order months worth of inventory at a time because they believe they will be able to purchase it for less money which does work in a few cases. But what are the costs of holding on to too much inventory? There is a risk of damage if items are in the way of traffic, or the storage area is somewhere that could get flooded. There is a cost of carrying inventory, especially if money was borrowed to purchase it. Regularly used items should have a short lead time and be available when you need it. Reviewing your usages by the monthly a minimum and knowing the lead time from your supplier should help you determine what amount you should have on your shelf. If you do not have this information, if you have consistently used a supplier they should be able to provide the information to you. Spikes in usage should also be captured in this information so you can plan accordingly. For your higher volumne product, you should not have to keep alot on the shelf.

Another waste of inventory may be stocking the same item in multiple locations to the maximum level that you might need. Look at the flow of materials through your building and perhaps you can replenish smaller/lower usage locations from a central storage area on a scheduled basis. This might prevent too much inventory from ending up on all shelves.

This also will cause a waste of time sorting through inventory to find what you need. There may also be a shelf life on certain products and if stock is not rotated this could become a problem leading to waste.

Homework assignment: Check out your inventory storage areas and map our your flow of materials through your buildings.

Lean 5s For Custodial – The Waste of Motion

renaehesselink — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:58:46 +0000

So you had time to think about the waste of overproduction, did you think about your opreations and come up with any real live examples? Post them here if you did and let’s get some discussion going on this important topic.

The next waste I want to introduce you to is the waste of motion which is defined as any movement that does not add value to your product or service. Examples may be walking back and forth to retrieve tools or to conduct tasks. How many of you have team members that are walking back and forth long distances to change the water in a mop bucket for example? Maybe your team is sharing equipment between buildings, if it is a piece of equipment that is used often, think about the time spent transporting it back and forth. Could that transport time help justify another piece of equipment? Bending and reaching for things that are used often and not conveniently located is a waste of motion and ultimately time and even worse stress on the body which can lead to safety and hazardous issues and worker’s compensation.

So your assignment until next time is to observe your team members at work. Are they wasting motion in their daily routines – sometimes we get into those routines and don’t notice the obvious things. Jot those down and share them with us. If you can identify waste in motion, you can eliminate it! Until next time, happy “leaning”!

Lean 5S for Custodial – The Waste of Overproduction

renaehesselink — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:53:32 +0000

OK – so you have had time to think about the eight different wastes that we might find in our processes and anywhere in our professional or personal lives. Today lets specifically talk about overproduction which is definied as producing more than needed or faster than needed. So how might that happen in a custodial/cleaning situation? Excess inventory. When is the last time you looked in your custodial closets and really gave them a good cleaning and sorting? Are you working with an automated system that tells you when and how much to replenish? If so, when is the last time you reviewed the usage and if that system works on a min/max replenishment – have you reviewed those lately. If you are still working with a manual system, excess inventory may be caused from “just in case logic”.

Another example may be waste in your material handling processes. What does the flow of product going through your department look like? Is it being handled too many times? Is this process causing excess inventory? Are you stocking the same materials in multiple locations in large quantities. Is your storage area organized so that things can be found easily so that over ordering doesn’t occur? In a few days we will dig into the 5S process and step one (sort) will help you address this.

A few other examples: over using resources (water, energy) and an unbalanced workload may cause overproduction also.

So spend some time thinking and observing your department and identify any possible wastes related to overproduction. Tomorrow I will address the waste of motion!

Lean 5S Principles for Custodial Departments

renaehesselink — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:50:28 +0000

Lean 5S practices have been around for many year. The concept started with Toyota in Japan and worked its way to the United States through the automotive industry and then through other manufacturing facilities across the country. So what is 5S all about? It is about eliminating waste. If you can identify waste, you can get rid of it. Eight wastes have been identified and they are as follows: •Overproduction •Motion •Inventory •Transportation •Waiting •Under-Utilized People •Defects •Over-processing.

So think about this and over the next few days we will explore examples and potential solutions for each of these. We will then explore the 5S process and will share some real live examples that we have seen happen working with custodial departments across Michigan.

Follow our Green Buildings of West Michigan Project

renaehesselink — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:09:25 +0000

We are on Facebook – join us! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=278066732744&ref=mf

Green Buildings of West Michigan Project and Showcase Tour

renaehesselink — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:48:55 +0000

Objective: With over 110 LEED certified buildings in West Michigan and that number continues to grow we have the perfect opportunity to prove the benefits and showcase green building design as a region. We are a leader, fourth in the nation with LEED certified buildings and yet we find very few of those building owners sharing that story in an organized way to attract tours, visitors and as an economic development tool for our region. We believe that we can assist in helping those building owner’s to pull their case studies together measuring the results of their green building choices and then to organize tours of these buildings to highlight the features. The diversity in the types of buildings that have been certified will provide a tour in the following market segments: office, small project, retail, health care, education, manufacturing and non-profit. We believe this is the first research project of this type, on this scale in the nation and we hope to gain national recognition through EPA, DOE, GreenSource and USGBC for this effort. Goals of this project: Establish Grand Rapids as the preeminent home of sustainable building; honor the contributions of the Furniture industry in establishing the sustainability ethic; raising the bar for building owners by having them benchmark building performance of LEED Buildings and encouraging them to pursue LEED for Green Buildings Operations and Maintenance.

We are targeting fall 2010 for a building tour event sponsored by USGBC West Michigan Chapter and plans are underway.

Deliverables for the building owner for this project are:

Data entered into the EERE (Department of Energy) database
Data entered into the McGraw Hill Greensource Database
Utility costs entered into the EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager
A 2-page summary/marketing piece of the project
Added to our Chapter’s Showcase on the website
Inclusion in our book “Green Buildings of West Michigan”

Stakeholders that can help make this happen: Building owners/managers of our LEED buildings (or architectural and construction management companies that were involved in the design and building process); USGBC WM, college/university students to help pull together the case studies, students that can help with the marketing and organizing the tour package, area Convention and Visitors Bureau and various Community Economic Development organizations that can utilize this information to attract visitors/businesses to the area. We feel this can be used within our region as an economic development tool as well as the State of Michigan.

Building owners that have committed to this research project:

GRPS – Burton Elementary (4 buildings)
Spectrum Health – Lemmen Holt Cancer Center
Grand Rapids Art Museum
Davenport University (4 buildings)
Dwelling Place (4 buildings)
Bazzani Headquarters (and possibly a few more buildings in Eastown)
Steelcase Showroom near 44^th
Steelcase Wood Plant
Herman Miller
Aquinas College (3 buildings)
Grand Valley State University (2 buildings)
Metro Health System
Haworth Corporation – Corporate Building
Forest Hills Public Schools (4 buildings)
Grand Rapids YMCA
City Flats Hotel – Holland
Plaza East Office Building – Holland
East Grand Rapids Public Library
St. Mary’s Health (Lack’s Cancer Center and St. Mary’s Southwest)
Habitat for Humanity Kent County
Cascade Engineering

To date the following colleges/universities have committed to organizing student teams to support the research: Grand Valley State University, Kendall School of Design, Aquinas College.

Green Existing Schools Toolkit Introduced

renaehesselink — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:27:59 +0000

The U.S. Green Building Council recently announced a new toolkit “Green Existing Schools”. Green schools create healthy environments conducive to learning while saving energy, resources, and money. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) developed The Green Existing Schools Project Management Guide to help schools and school districts green their existing facilities and achieve LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. The guide outlines the process for navigating LEED certification for existing schools and provides details on how to conduct organizational assessments, educate and train staff, initiate the certification process, and manage a campus- or district-wide plan. It is designed to be used in concert with additional resources contained in the Green Existing Schools Toolkit (www.usgbc.org/k12toolkit ), including:

Green Existing Schools Implementation Workbook for Schools Project teams should refer to the workbook to assist with the evaluation and improvement of current O&M practices and policies. The contents of the workbook include sample policies, programs, and plans; data collection forms, worksheets, and tables; and sample surveys.
LEED 2009 for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance Project Checklist Project teams can use the LEED Project Checklist as a scorecard to track the credits they are pursuing toward certification.
“LEED 2009 for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance Rating System” The rating system summarizes the intent, requirements, and technologies/ strategies for each credit
“LEED 2009 Green Building Operations & Maintenance Reference Guide” The reference guide contains detailed information on the implementation of prerequisites and credit requirements. It can be purchased at www.usgbc.org/store.

Implementing an initiative to green existing schools across a campus or district requires a comprehensive plan that integrates two processes: one focused on how each school facility will meet the LEED building performance requirements and the other on adopting sustainable operations and maintenance policies and best practices. Coordinating these two processes, along with the LEED documentation requirements, calls for dedicated, informed champions who are capable of leading an integrated project team and improving operational effectiveness.

You have two U.S. Green Building Green School Advocates in Michigan ready to assist you to understand the benefits and challenges.

Renae Hesselink, LEED AP, Chair and Green School Advocacy Circle Chair for USGBC West Michigan Chapter
Vice President of Sustainability, Nichols Paper & Supply
Renae.hesselink@enichols.com
(231) 799-2120 Ext 117

Peggy Matta, AIA, LEED AP
USGBC Detroit Regional Chapter Green Schools Advocacy Circle Chair
mmattaarch@gmail.com
(248)227-3134

Nichols 5th Annual Green Facilities Conference

renaehesselink — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:19:36 +0000

March 23, 2010

Muskegon, MI … In keeping with its solid commitment to Green Cleaning and Sustainability, Muskegon-based Nichols will host an all-day Green Facilities Conference on Tuesday, March 23rd, at Calvin College’s Prince Conference Center in Grand Rapids. The keynote speaker will be Alan Bigger, retired facilities director from Earlham College and Notre Dame University and author of the book “Frugalisms: Creative Ideas on Leadership in Facilities and Housekeeping Operations” will bring a front line message to conference participants.. This is Nichols fifth annual Green Facilities Conference and attendance has been increasing every year and near capacity – so first come, first serve.

Nichols’ Green Cleaning Program, which involves a holistic, comprehensive approach to cleaning, includes a large selection of environmentally friendly products, ongoing education of customers, and the training of building maintenance professionals and building occupants to better understand their role in the health and safety of their environment. The primary market is customers who have developed formalized environmental and sustainability objectives, including (but not limited to) government offices, manufacturing companies, school systems, colleges and universities, hotels and other commercial and industrial accounts.

The focus of the March 23rd conference will be on educating Nichols’ customers and others about maintaining healthy buildings while still protecting the environment. In addition to Bigger’s presentation, the event will include more than 25 educational workshops led by national, state, and local speakers. Many new workshops have been added this year and there is a well-rounded offering of workshops to gain knowledge about maintaining green buildings including a specific track for LEED for Existing Buildings, Lean/5S for Facilities Management, Environmental Sustainability for Health Care Facilities, Lowering the Cost of Green Through Incentives and Grants, a couple relating to creating a new culture around sustainability and several case studies from local organizations who have implemented sustainability best practices.

The cost for the Green Facilities Conference is $80 per person, which includes a continental breakfast and lunch. Anyone who is interested in attending may register by calling Nichols at 800-442-0213, extension 117, or by visiting the Nichols Web site at www.enichols.com/greenconference .

San Francisco Adds Compost Mandate to Recycling Program

renaehesselink — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:28:18 +0000

http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/25803/San_Francisco_Adds_Compost_Mandate_to_Recycling_Program.html