Raw material prices that continue to fluctuate. Customers demanding shorter lead times while the complexity of orders increases. Operators who are hard to find and even harder to retain. And an OEE that, despite all the investments in machinery and systems, isn’t where it should be.

The manufacturing industry is the sector for which Lean was Lean invented. The Toyota Production System, the source of everything we Lean today, was developed on the production floor, not in a boardroom. The principles are straightforward: eliminate what does not add value, streamline what remains, and build an organization that continuously improves itself. For more than 20 years, LMI has been helping industrial companies translate those principles into measurable results: from SME machine builders to multinationals, from discrete manufacturing to the process industry.

Common challenges on the production floor

The challenges that industrial companies bring to us are diverse, but the underlying patterns are familiar. Quality issues that keep recurring despite improvement efforts, because the root cause has never truly been identified. An OEE that consistently lags behind, with downtime and speed losses that have come to feel “normal.” Lead times that are too long for what customers will accept, even though the shop floor appears to be running at full capacity all day. Changeover times that are so long that production occurs in large batches, resulting in high inventory, little flexibility, and a slow time to market.

And then there are the growth challenges: the organization is scaling up, but the processes aren’t keeping pace. A new distribution center or production line needs to be set up, but no one has given serious thought to how the workflow will operate once it’s up and running. Or a global supply chain that requires constant replanning, even though the planning system itself is already stretched to its limits.

These are not insurmountable problems. They are symptoms of processes that were not designed for today’s circumstances and that can be improved step by step with the right approach.

Lean in Practice: Proven Methods

In the industrial sector, LMI offers a wide range of Lean, always tailored to your specific needs.

Value Stream Mapping makes the entire production flow visible, from raw materials to the finished product. This includes all waiting times, buffers, and waste that normally remain hidden. It serves as the foundation for any targeted improvement initiative.

Kaizen gets the shop floor moving: during a structured improvement week, teams tackle a specific bottleneck and achieve measurable improvements in lead time, quality, or safety. Tata Steel is one of the organizations that successfully implemented a Kaizen improvement week with LMI.

SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die) focuses on drastically reducing changeover times, allowing you to switch between product variants more frequently and flexibly, resulting in lower inventory levels and a shorter time to market.

OEE improvement reveals where production losses actually lie: in availability, performance, or quality. Using this analysis as a foundation, improvement measures are implemented in a targeted manner rather than through broad guesswork.

Training Within Industry (TWI) standardizes the transfer of knowledge on the job. In an industry with high employee turnover and a tight labor market, safeguarding knowledge is not a luxury but an operational necessity.

Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri) is used when the issue is more strategic in nature: how do you translate management’s production goals into concrete priorities on the shop floor, with visible progress at all levels?

Lean various industrial subsectors

Discrete Manufacturing Industry
‍Inmechanical engineering, metalworking, and assembly, waste often stems from long changeover times, high work-in-process inventory, and a production flow that varies from order to order. Lean introduce standardization and flow without losing the flexibility required for customer-specific work. Fokker, Scania, and Deutz are examples of manufacturing companies where LMI has facilitated Lean and improvement initiatives.

Process Industry and Bulk Production
‍Inthe chemical, coatings, paper, and packaging industries, the challenges are different: high capital intensity, complex changeover processes, and continuous production where downtime translates directly into losses. OEE improvement, TPM, and process standardization are the primary tools here. Saica, Sekisui Alveo, and Rockwool are clients for whom LMI has been active in this context.

High-Tech and Defense
‍Inhigh-tech manufacturing and defense-related industries, strict quality requirements, high order complexity, and long lead times prevail, making time-to-market a key competitive factor. Lean—particularly A3 Problem Solving, First Time Right thinking, and Strategy Deployment—directly address these challenges. Thales, ILIAS Solutions, and Stryker are examples of clients in this segment.

Construction and Installation
Lean alsoprovides Lean in project-based production environments such as construction, offshore, and installation. SBM Offshore and Dura Vermeer are examples of organizations that Lean implemented Lean in complex, project-driven environments.

New production lines or factories to be set up
‍Anew production line or factory is the ideal time to incorporate Lean the very start. LMI guides organizations through process design, workplace layout, and employee training—ensuring that the new line is not only technically sound but also runs smoothly from day one. At Koninklijke Vezet, we helped build the factory of the future. Outdoor Life Group is an example where LMI helped set up a completely new Lean .

Training and consulting for the manufacturing industry

LMI offers both in-house Lean and consulting services for industrial organizations. Operators, team leaders, and process improvement specialists can be trained through Lean Yellow Belt, Green Belt Black Belt , all of which are available as in-house options featuring case studies from the production environment. Pietro Fiorentini and Deutz are examples of internationally operating industrial organizations that train their employees to become Lean Black Belt through LMI.

For broader organizational challenges, René—our director with over 30 years Lean in the manufacturing industry—would be happy to discuss your specific situation with you, with no obligation.

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