UK Lean Systems Helps Make Fatter Food Bank
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 6, 2011) — The Freestore Foodbank is working more efficiently this holiday season thanks to the Lean Systems Program in the University of Kentucky College of Engineering.
The food bank, which serves 20 counties in southeastern Indiana, northern Kentucky and southern Ohio, was trained in Lean Systems by UK personnel and has experienced much success. In just two years, they have gone from 9 million lbs. of food distributed to 18 million lbs. without adding a single employee. The UK program has also had a positive effect on warehouse storage and the transportation of food.
[IMAGE4]The American Italian Pasta Company (AIPC) in Missouri also participated in the Lean Systems training and upon hearing about Freestore Foodbank's success, donated a tractor-trailer full of pasta to the food bank — that's more than 40,000 lbs of pasta. APIC, a division of Ralcorp, is America’s largest producer of dry pasta, with products sold through grocery retailers, mass merchandisers, and membership warehouse clubs.
Walt George, president of APIC and John Young, president of Freestore Foodbank, came to UK last week to meet each other and acknowledge the donation.
"This donation equals more than 300,000 servings of pasta," said John Young, president of Freestore Foodbank. "With our current economy we've been seeing the need for food support rise steadily. We are very thankful to the American Italian Pasta Company and the UK Lean Program for making this happen."
By attending the UK lean certification series, employees of both Freestore and AIPC learned the basics of true lean, which teaches students step by step how to facilitate a true lean implementation across any business process. Although originally focused on manufacturing, it has become apparent that lean principles can be applied to many other enterprises as well, such as the health care, service and food industries.
UK's lean program was developed as a university-industry partnership initiated by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky in 1994, and has since helped thousands of organizations around the world in increasing efficiency, cutting waste and improving leadership by teaching a nine-phase lean implementation sequence.
"We know that our program teaches people how to apply true lean in a way they can immediately use in their own processes," said Ken Kreafle, director of the lean program and a Toyota executive-in-residence. “But it’s an unexpected privilege to be a catalyst for a positive connection between two clients resulting in a good deed for a lot of hungy people."
MEDIA CONTACT: Jenny Wells, (859) 257-5343; Jenny.Wells@uky.edu