Consulting Opportunities—A New Approach

By Wade Sikora

There are many opportunities for business and professional growth in the consulting field. While some consultants are focused on traditional approaches to EHS business opportunities, the more successful consultants are learning how to develop flexible relationships with their ever-changing customers—with sophistication and with new technologies, products and approaches.

The changes in business today challenge factories to find new ways to ensure survival. This creates new opportunities for consultants. To meet the challenge of change requires all businesses to move beyond old organizational concepts and customs that no longer apply and adopt new methods that are appropriate to the times. The successful EHS consultant must also find ways to adapt or create new business, while supporting the customer’s business objectives. If you don’t, someone else will.

This article focuses on a creative approach to pursuing expansion of consulting business opportunities through an understanding and adoption of the concept of “lean manufacturing”—specifically, the Japanese housekeeping program known as 5S.

Five Pillars of a Healthy Business

5S is based on the concept that factories are like living organisms. Like a healthy organism, they move and change in a flexible relationship with the environment. Thorough implementation of the five pillars of 5S is a starting point in the development of improvement activities to ensure any company’s health and survival.

The five pillars are defined as Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. Sort means that you remove all items that are not needed for current operations, allowing more space for good workplace design. Ergonomic considerations are evaluated, and good lighting, thermal comfort and air quality can be addressed to provide for safety and health improvements. Potential employee exposures are also evaluated during this step.

Set in Order is defined as arranging needed items so they are easy to use and labeling them so they are easy to find. The hazard communication requirements of EHS can be nicely dovetailed with this step. Sort and Set in Order are also foundations for achieving zero defects, cost reductions, safety improvements and zero accidents.

Shine involves sweeping, preventing dust and contamination at the source and making sure that everything in the factory stays clean so that people are able to breathe clean, fresh air while they perform work—all the standard control concepts of industrial hygiene such as control ventilation, housekeeping techniques, personal protective equipment use, etc.

Standardize is the method you use to maintain the first three pillars after Shine has been practiced for some time. Sustain means making a habit of properly maintaining correct procedures.

People practice 5S in their daily lives without even noticing it, but few factories standardize with the 5S routines as in the daily life of an orderly person. The 5S routines maintain organization and orderliness and are essential to a smooth and efficient flow of activities. The health and safety professional consultant can easily sell EHS services by finding the specific areas where their skills match a particular task or step of 5S. The 5S approach is a powerful tool for factory improvement and can be a source of consulting business for the EHS professional.

Sikora is a CIH with Applied Envirometrics, Middlegrove, N.Y. The ConsultSIG welcomes your comments regarding this article or any ideas for future topics. Post them to the ConsultSIG listserv or e-mail them to aport@whitmanco.com.

For more information on the ConsultSIG and the listserv, contact William Ringo at (502) 245-5289 or bill@dmr-associates.net.