I was reading an article in the recent issue of AME Target, “Looking Forward,” excerpted from Doc Hall’s new book, Compression, due out this month from Productivity Press. The article is very thought-provoking as it looks at the future of manufacturing. One idea really struck me and is something I’ve always wondered about in the back of my mind. Successful companies focus on what customers really want. Waste is something that a customer does not want and is not willing to pay for, according to lean thinking. Companies that lose focus on customer desires can go out of business. This is a basic tenet of lean thinking and lean enterprise. But what if what the customer wants is not green? What if a product is bad for the earth, the sustainability of the planet and our way of life?

Doc cites the Hummer as an example. It may have lean, efficient manufacturing. And the product is what many customers want. But the product itself is very bad for the planet, leaving a massive carbon footprint in its wake of high fuel consumption.

Another example (mine) is bottled water. The whole process of bottling and shipping water, from the reduction of ground water near some bottling plants to the energy required to make plastic bottles and then ship them to distant customers illustrates the conundrum of customer focus without sustainability.

There are numerous examples of successful companies and customer satisfaction built on the basis of earth-destructive products.

If the developed world is to continue to maintain our standard of living and improve it for others on the planet who are currently living at much lower levels and whose plight they will eventually not allow the rest of us to ignore, what do we do? Our resources will not last forever if we consume instead of recycle and resuse.

The answers are not easy. The impending sustainability crisis is and will be the mother of invention.  It will change “what the customer wants” to be more in sync with green.  Out of necessity our culture of individuality and freedom needs to transition to one of community and to a point where satisfying individual desires does not destroy the planet. But how? And how soon? 

I’ll be interested to hear more from Doc Hall at the upcoming AME Lean Conference in Kentucky.