• Lean & Green Production Systems have become the new paradigm for excellence in value generation and delivery for the most competitive companies in the world.
  • A Lean & Green Production System can be defined as a system designed for improving operational efficiency and sustainability simultaneous and continuously in order to enhance radically the ability of either an organization or a supply chain for generating and delivering value to its customers and to the society as a whole.
  • Lean & Green initiatives are relatively recent; but they have been successfully developed and applied in cutting edge organisations such as Toyota, Marks and Spencer, MARS, Sainsbury’s, Adnams, ASSA ABLOY and many more.
  • The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started to promote the simultaneous application of Lean Production improvement initiatives and Green Production practices after a study commissioned by the EPA concluded in 2003 that there were empirical evidences about the potential of Lean Production for improving simultaneously operational efficiency and sustainability.
  • More recently some consulting companies are playing a key role in the deployment of Lean & Green operational strategies in large companies around the world.

International Dimension

The Master in Lean & Green Supply Chains is a joint initiative of a UPM team led by Professor Joaquín Fuentes-Pila and of Dr. Keivan Zokaei, Founder and Managing Director of Enterprize Excellence and Partner of S A Partners.

Dr. Zokaei is a former lecturer of Cardiff University and a former director of the Lean Enterprise Research Centre and of the Master in Lean Systems of this university. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Lean & Green Consortium.

Keivan Zoakei and Peter Hines, Chairman of S A Partners, were awarded on March 2014 the Shingo Prize to the 2014 Shingo Research and Publication Award for their book “Creating a Lean and Green Business System: techniques for improving profits and sustainability” (http://leanandgreenbusiness.com/), also coauthored by Hunter Lovins and Andy Woods. The four authors of this book are the board directors of the Lean & Green Consortium.

Likewise, recognized UPM experts on the reduction of the different Green wastes as well as two leading experts in the design and implementation of Lean methodologies and tools in Spain: Ramón Antelo, Director of the World Class Center for Advanced Manufacturing at Altran, y Juan Torrubiano, Project Director at Improven.