FEATURE – Learn how Lean Thinking and the establishment of Communities of Practice are transforming automotive reconditioning at Aramis Group.

Words: Rémi Pigeol

In an industrial environment that’s constantly evolving, performance is no longer just about technical optimization. To stay competitive, we need to develop, share, and capitalize on knowledge. More than a set of tools, Lean is a strategic approach built on continuous learning, experimentation, and team engagement to create value.

Communities of practice play a key role in this transformation by facilitating exchange and collective learning. At Aramis Group, we’ve turned operational challenges into opportunities for innovation by breaking knowledge silos and building strong connections between teams across countries.

This shift didn’t happen overnight. It took a collective commitment to change the way we collaborate and learn – starting with a simple but powerful realization: we were facing the same problems, separately.

THE ISOLATION OF KNOWLEDGE: A BARRIER TO INNOVATION

As we expanded our network of vehicle reconditioning plants across Europe, a pattern emerged: despite facing similar challenges – shortage of parts, long intervention times, variations in quality – each team was trying to solve these issues independently. A plant in the UK might redesign its repair process, while another in Spain tackled the same issue from scratch, unaware that a better solution already existed next door. Valuable knowledge was stuck in silos, making us slower, less efficient, and more vulnerable to mistakes already solved elsewhere.

We knew we had to connect the dots.

With this goal in mind, the decision was made to structure a community around the three fundamental elements defined by Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder in Cultivating Communities of Practice:

• A shared domain: vehicle reconditioning, with a focus on lean fundamentals – value creation, problem-solving, waste reduction.
• A real community: plant directors and operational leaders facing similar challenges, supported by a culture that encourages trust and initiative.
• A common practice: methods and solutions developed, tested, and refined across countries, then shared transparently.

This wasn’t about imposing standards. It was about enabling every team to benefit from the learning of others. A lean solution in Belgium could now inspire a breakthrough in Austria. One small win could ripple through the entire organization. And that’s exactly what began to happen once we created the space for it.

THE POWER OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

To make this collective learning work, we established a rhythm. Every two weeks, we meet digitally to share challenges, improvements, mistakes and learnings. Every quarter, we meet in person at one of our production sites. These meetings are more than checkpoints – they are moments of alignment, where ideas become shared assets.

One concrete example: at one of our pioneering plants, thanks to a rigorous Kaizen approach, a new procedure for replacing timing belts was developed. The result? A time reduction of over 80% for this recurring task. Thanks to the community, this improvement spread to six other countries within weeks. A local initiative became a group-wide performance leap.

This rhythm of exchange brought unexpected benefits too: deeper trust, faster feedback loops, and a growing sense of “we’re in this together.” The impact was real – and growing.

In every meeting, we go beyond reporting metrics. We bring problems, test ideas, and request help when needed. These are not formal updates, but honest conversations that allow expertise to circulate freely.

It’s how, for example, one team’s solution to a parts shortage – by using 3D printing for non-safety-critical components – quickly inspired similar trials in other countries. Or how a failed experiment in France saved time and effort in Italy, simply because the story was shared early.

Instead of working in parallel, we started learning in sync. And once that dynamic took hold, we saw the need to scale it into something even bigger.

THE ARAMIS PERFORMANCE ENGINE: A COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE MODEL

This evolution has participated in the emergence of what we now call the Aramis Performance Engine: a management system based on collective learning, shared responsibility, and customer value.

We operate as a “team of teams,” connected by a common framework of principles and methods. Each team retains autonomy but works within a system that amplifies good ideas and helps us avoid repeating the same mistakes.

The Performance Engine isn’t just a tool; it’s a mindset. And once this mindset is in place, it reshapes the role of leadership itself.

In this model, leaders are not directive experts. They’re enablers, creating the conditions for others to succeed. They help teams frame problems, explore options, and learn from outcomes, even when they fail.

Shared leadership also allows us to experiment boldly, knowing that we can rely on each other to adjust and learn fast. The result is more innovation, less fear of failure, and greater resilience when plans don’t go as expected.

This shift changed how we make decisions, how we organize work and, above all, how we scale what works. Our challenge now was clear: how do we sustain this performance engine as we grow?

TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE CULTURAL AND OPERATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

Since the launch of the community and the broader transformation efforts, we’ve seen steady and meaningful progress.

• Teams report faster onboarding, improved execution quality, and greater problem-solving autonomy.
• Best practices are spreading more naturally, contributing to time and cost savings across multiple areas – including complex technical operations, such as timing belt replacement.
• Cross-site collaboration is no longer an exception. It’s becoming more natural and frequent across the network.

These improvements are more than numbers. They reflect a deeper change in how we think and work together. But what truly matters is our ability to keep this momentum alive.

To do that, we maintain the rhythm: regular exchanges, simple tools to capture learnings, and a light but effective structure that gives teams both support and freedom.

The power of the community isn’t in a central database. It’s in the ongoing conversations, the trusted relationships, and the willingness to help each other succeed.

It’s not just about what we’ve built – it’s about what we’re now capable of building together.

Beyond operational gains, the greatest impact may be cultural. We’ve moved from local optimization to global learning, from reactive improvement to proactive exploration, from isolated teams to a shared mission.

People now feel part of something bigger. They know their insights matter – not just for their plant, but for the entire group. That sense of purpose is becoming one of our most powerful performance drivers.

And perhaps the most exciting part? We’re just getting started.

CONCLUSION

The lean journey at Aramis Group demonstrates how establishing structured institutions, such as communities of practice, can turn shared problems into shared victories. By removing barriers between teams, encouraging open dialogue, and structuring the flow of knowledge, we’ve built a system where learning fuels performance – every day.

Concrete achievements, such as the timing belt replacement redesign and 3D printing innovation, are proof that this approach works. But beyond the numbers, we’ve built a culture of trust, experimentation, and continuous improvement.

This is what Lean looks like when it’s alive: not just a method to apply, but a collective movement that harnesses the power of shared knowledge. Each conversation, each experiment, each breakthrough adds to our collective intelligence, serving as a powerful lever for building the company of tomorrow in an ever-evolving industrial landscape.

_THE AUTHOR