The mining industry is known for facing continual uncertainty and volatility, making it imperative for mining companies to identify and implement strategies for sustainable cost reduction and operational efficiency in order to maintain healthy profitability and reduce risk. As such, it’s no surprise that the principles of Lean Management are being increasingly adopted by companies throughout the industry.
In the past two and a half years, as manufacturing companies in the defense sector have struggled to cope with unprecedented challenges and disruptions, lean digital manufacturing has gained prominence as an ideal method to solve the kinds of complex problems and disruptions caused by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other world events.
Water utilities, like many other sectors of the utility industry, are facing increased scrutiny in the areas of costs and profit delivery and new challenges in their quest to ensure adequate supplies and proper sanitation. The water sector must also cope with an uncertain future of dwindling water resources, the pressures of increasing population, aging infrastructure, and a warming climate.
The benefits of Lean Management have been well established when it comes to eliminating waste, streamlining operations, and lowering costs to result in greater efficiency. However, it’s a more recent development to look at the ways in which Lean Principles and practices help enterprises become more environmentally sound. Leaders are under increasing pressure to “go green” from regulatory bodies and from consumers motivated to choose products perceived as less environmentally harmful.
The wide amount of challenges and the high complexity affecting the oil and gas industry, drives the need to increase competitiveness by continuously improving processes across the supply chain, from the Upstream Exploration and Production processes all the way through the Midstream transportation and the Downstream refining of products. Continuous improvement initiatives should begin with the identification of major areas of improvement, in order to derive a structured implementation plan prioritizing high return projects that can be implemented easily.