2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A growing number of manufacturers are recognizing significant financial and environmental benefits from adopting sustainable business practices. Sustainable manufacturing refers to the production of goods through processes that are economically sound, minimize environmental impact, and conserve energy and natural resources. Lean engineering, a comprehensive approach to decision-making and leadership within manufacturing organizations, has proven effective in driving sustainable practices. Key strategies include waste elimination, value identification, value stream mapping, flow creation, pull system establishment, and continuous improvement. Both lean manufacturing and sustainability share a common focus on minimizing waste. Lean principles address seven types of waste: transport, inventory, motion, waiting, over-processing, overproduction, and defects. By reducing waste, lean manufacturing improves collaboration, monitors opportunities for improvement, and ensures that only the necessary products are produced, minimizing environmental harm caused by operations. Lean tools, such as Value Stream Mapping (VSM), play a crucial role in identifying and mitigating environmental waste. The concept of continuous improvement, embodied in Kaizen, encourages efforts to reduce energy consumption and material waste. This paper will present integration of Engineering for One Planet (EOP) framework into the Lean Engineering course within the Engineering Technology Department, Manufacturing Engineering Technology Program. This curriculum revision integrates learning outcomes from three key topics in the EOP framework: Environmental Literacy, and Responsible Business and Economy.