In the world of quality and lean, waste is the enemy. We hunt for it in cycle times, inventory buffers, and defects. But occasionally we encounter a form of waste so massive and literal that we fail to see it as a resource.

A recent redevelopment project at Denver’s National Western Center (NWC) offers a master class in pivoting from a compliance mindset to a value-creation mindset. The project faced a classic infrastructure bottleneck: two massive, 72 in. wastewater mains running through the heart of the site. Because the effluent within needed to dissipate heat before discharge, building over them was a regulatory and engineering nonstarter.

Conventional thinking would frame this as a problem to be mitigated. Instead, the engineering team reframed it as a resource. By capturing the waste heat from the wastewater flow, the project now uses the sewer system to heat and cool major portions of the campus.

To the traditional eye, these pipes were a constraint. To the TRIZ-trained eye, they were a thermal battery.

The lean pivot: Turning harm into benefit

In a standard lean value-stream map, these pipes represented muda (waste). The heat was a byproduct that stalled urban redevelopment. However, using the lens of TRIZ, this solution exemplifies a powerful shift: turning a harmful factor into a beneficial function.

TRIZ, a Russian acronym for “theory of inventive problem solving,” is a systematic framework for solving technical contradictions without compromise. Rather than “meeting in the middle,” TRIZ uses 40 inventive principles to bypass trade-offs (such as increasing power without increasing weight). By mapping problems to a “contradiction matrix,” practitioners can identify proven strategies (like “blessing in disguise” or “self-service”) to turn system constraints into competitive advantages. Developed by Genrich Altshuller after analyzing thousands of patents, TRIZ provides a systematic framework for innovation.

Instead of spending capital to move the pipes, the team at NWC integrated a heat recovery system. It pulls thermal energy from the raw sewage—which stays at a consistent temperature year-round—to provide low-carbon heating and cooling.

The project leveraged what already existed:
• A continuous flow of wastewater
• Predictable thermal energy
• Proximity to buildings with high energy demand

Thus, the sewer line became multifunctional, serving as both waste transport and a utility provider. This reduced emissions and avoided the capital cost of redundant heating equipment.

Solving the contradiction

To a quality professional, this is a win because it resolves a technical contradiction. In any system, when we try to improve one factor (like energy efficiency), another factor usually gets worse (like the complexity or cost of the equipment).

The NWC team bypassed this trade-off by applying four specific inventive strategies.

Extraction: They “took out” the disturbing property (heat) from the pipe so the pipe could fulfill its primary role without interference.

Self-service: They used a waste resource to perform a new, useful function, allowing the system to maintain itself.

Blessing in disguise: They took the very characteristic that made the pipes problematic—excess heat—and made it the foundation of a new energy solution.

Universality: They tasked a single component (the infrastructure) with multiple roles, increasing the “functional density” of the site.

A systems view of sustainability

What makes this example relevant for quality professionals is that it didn’t require a breakthrough technology. The innovation came from how the system was viewed.

TRIZ strives for the “ideal final result”—a state where the desired function is performed, but the physical system itself disappears or requires no additional resources. By using the sewer pipes as both a furnace and an air conditioner, NWC moved closer to this ideal. The existing infrastructure became the solution, eliminating the need for a traditional, energy-hungry central plant.

Sustainability emerges naturally when we stop treating constraints as obstacles and start viewing them as untapped resources. Too often, organizations pursue “green” goals by layering new, expensive solutions onto old problems. This case shows that we can find sustainability by taking inventory of available waste and asking how existing systems might serve multiple purposes.

The quality takeaway

The NWC project reminds us that the “quality of waste” depends entirely on our perspective. When we encounter a stubborn bottleneck, the lean response shouldn’t just be, “How do we get rid of this?” but rather, “What latent energy does this bottleneck have?”

By treating infrastructure as a multifunctional asset, NWC didn’t just solve a headache; the team built the largest wastewater heat-recovery system in North America.

That’s operational excellence in its purest, most sustainable form.