Aging networks that must be expanded to support the energy transition. A generation of skilled workers retiring and taking decades of expertise with them. Customers and the public who will not tolerate outages, yet demand more capacity than the grid can handle. And a growing political and social urgency surrounding energy, water, and grid congestion that only increases the pressure on utility companies.

Today, utility companies must continue to deliver results while simultaneously building new infrastructure, developing new capabilities, and creating an organization agile enough to navigate a transition that is unfolding faster than planned. For more than 20 years, LMI has been helping water, energy, and network companies meet this dual challenge: making processes more predictable, structurally embedding knowledge, linking strategic ambitions to day-to-day operations, and training employees to identify and address bottlenecks on their own.

Common challenges in the utilities sector

The challenges that utility companies bring to LMI are more strategic in nature than in most other sectors. How can you make asset management processes more transparent and predictable, so that maintenance and replacement are carried out in a planned rather than reactive manner? How do you foster a culture of continuous improvement in an organization that has traditionally excelled in technology and craftsmanship but is less experienced in systematic process improvement? How do you translate the major strategic challenges of the energy transition into concrete priorities for departments and teams, without letting current service delivery slip?

And then there is the issue of knowledge retention that affects the entire sector: how do you ensure that the knowledge of experienced professionals who will be retiring in the coming years is passed on to a new generation in a way that is reproducible and verifiable, rather than dependent on individual expertise?

Lean the context of the energy transition

For grid operators and energy companies, the energy transition is not a vision for the future but a daily operational reality. The Netherlands is ahead of many other European countries in the energy transition, but as a result, it faces increasing grid congestion, despite utility companies scaling up their investments. The pressure on organizations such as TenneT, Gasunie, Alliander, and the regional water utilities is enormous: handling more connections, realizing new capacity faster, and coordinating more complex projects—all with the same or smaller teams.

In this context, Lean not Lean a technical solution to grid congestion, but it does Lean an organizational one. How do you structure the processes for permit applications and grid connections so that they do not cause unnecessary delays? How do you manage progress in a complex, multi-year transition involving dozens of parties? How do you ensure that management maintains daily control over implementation without being overwhelmed by reports? These are precisely the questions that Strategy Deployment, Obeya management, and daily improvement structures are designed to answer.

How LMI Works at Utility Companies

LMI’s collaboration with utility companies operates on two levels, which LMI often combines. At the training level, employees—ranging from technicians and emergency service coordinators to process improvement specialists and managers—are trained in Lean and practices. At E.ON, LMI provided training for multiple Lean levels, including Lean Black Belt Black Belt Lean Sigma, as well as full certification for employees. Waternet was supported through Lean training and certification. And at Alliander/Liander, the demand for Lean is so consistent that employees from that organization attend virtually every open enrollment session for LMI’s Lean Green Belt . A sign that needs no further explanation.

When it comes to consulting and strategic guidance, LMI consultants collaborate with clients to address broader challenges: asset management, knowledge transfer, cultural change, and the alignment of strategic ambitions with day-to-day operations. Methods such as Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri), Training Within Industry (TWI), A3 Problem Solving, and daily improvement board management are employed as needed to address the specific requirements of each situation.

Lean the various subsectors

for Grid Operators and Energy Companies ‍Forgrid operators such as TenneT and Alliander/Liander, and energy companies such as E.ON and Vattenfall, the challenges are both operational and strategic. Reliability of supply is the absolute minimum; any disruption has direct societal consequences. Lean standardize maintenance processes, improve outage recovery, and strengthen control over complex infrastructure projects. At the same time, Strategy Deployment helps translate the enormous strategic challenge of the energy transition into manageable priorities at all levels of the organization.

Gas and Transmission Networks
‍AtGasunie, the transition from natural gas to hydrogen and other energy carriers plays a major role. Lean a framework for translating complex transition challenges into actionable improvement processes, while ensuring the reliability of the current network.

Drinking Water and Water Management
‍Fordrinking water companies such as Vitens, Dunea, Waternet, and Brabant Water, quality, security of supply, and increasing water scarcity are the key challenges. Lean improve maintenance processes, reduce breakdowns, and structurally safeguard expertise in a sector that, like the energy sector, is facing a rapid generational shift. The combination of TWI for knowledge retention and daily improvement structures for operational control is particularly effective in this sector.

Knowledge retention: the underestimated challenge

In no other sector is the need to preserve knowledge as urgent as in the utilities sector. The infrastructure that maintains water, gas, and electricity networks is complex, in some cases decades old, and heavily reliant on the tacit knowledge of experienced professionals. If that knowledge is not systematically transferred, it will be lost. And with the retirement of the baby boomer generation, this is not a hypothetical scenario but an ongoing process.

Training Within Industry (TWI) is the Lean that addresses this issue most directly. TWI structures the transfer of expertise from experienced employees to new colleagues in a way that is reproducible and verifiable. It is not an onboarding program, but a systematic approach to ensure that critical knowledge remains within the organization, even when the people who possess it are no longer there.

What are the benefits?

Utilities that systematically Lean see results on three levels. Operational: more reliable maintenance processes, faster outage recovery processes, and fewer unnecessary steps in request and planning processes. Organizational: employees who identify and address bottlenecks themselves, secured expertise that is no longer dependent on specific individuals, and a culture of improvement that does not rely on project-based enthusiasm. Strategic: an organization that not only formulates its transition ambitions but also realizes them, with visible progress at all levels on a daily basis.

Huibert-Jan den Hartog, VP & Associate Director at E.ON, put it this way:
‍"LMI provides training for E.ON on various certification levels, including the Lean Black Belt Black Belt Lean Sigma. They also handle the entire certification process for our employees and serve as our strategic partner for a variety of issues. I am very satisfied with LMI’s professionalism and flexibility, as well as with the input provided by the LMI consultants.”

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