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In this interesting session, Fabrizio Maronta from Italian geopolitical magazine Limes offers a snapshot of the current geopolitical situation and discusses the implications for the business world

How can businesses balance speed and innovation while maintaining product quality? This session will address how GE Appliances overcame this challenge by embracing Lean Product and Process Development (LPPD) and a craftsmanship mindset. Attendees will learn how the company integrated digital tools like 3D scanning and virtual reality to accelerate design cycles, cut waste, and meet evolving consumer demands with precision and elegance. Discover how lean thinking and craftsmanship transformed their approach to both product and process innovation.

Discover how Centres of Excellence are pivotal in driving lean and digital transformation at the Polish branch of the Kruk Group. These interdisciplinary teams enhance competencies by offering mentoring, creating a network of internal trainers, and setting standards for tools, techniques, and best practices.

Join "Uncertain" author Maggie Jackson and Toyota Kata coach Tracy Defoe for a conversation, moderated by Sérgio Caldeirinha from Lean Academy Portugal, about the benefits of hesitation, reflection and uncertainty. Why does not knowing fuel adaptability? What do we know about struggle, learning, and practice? There's never been a better time for your team to be skillfully unsure!

Despite significant advances in robotics and artificial intelligence over the past three decades, the adoption of these technologies in manufacturing remains the exception rather than the rule. For example, only 12% of manufacturing facilities in the United States have any robot adoption at all, and only half of those facilities report moderate or high use of robotics. What explains why manufacturing firms have had such difficulty making use of new technologies? Drawing on technology sales data, case studies, and interviews, this presentation will identify technical, workforce, and management characteristics that differentiate robot power users. It will also discuss the ways in which public policy and training programs have the potential to shape the adoption of new technologies that can drive improved productivity and higher wages.

The Lean Community's favorite trivia game is BACK! Put your lean knowledge to the test in this fun game

This presentation covers the Lean Enterprise Academy's research based on 50 organizations trying to apply Lean Thinking. Using the Lean Transformation Framework, the speakers will summarise their key findings.

Brazilian agrobusiness Sitio Barreiras has developed a unique and clever management system that puts people at the heart of the work. Fábio takes us through it.

As the world changes and things go faster and faster, it is imperative for companies to adapt and change the way they do things or they will not only fall behind but risk going out of business altogether. The traditional business model, with its functional structure and batch approach, not only contains significant built-in waste but is also difficult to change. Art will explain why the lean management approach is a far better way to run any type of company and why it's important to inject Lean Thinking into the company culture, to ensure sustainability of results and develop organizational relisience and competitiveness.

Jaime and Christian will share the story of how developing a closer relationship with a supplier let EGAKAT to embrace Lean Thinking and transform its management model.

More soon on this presentation on Instituto Modelo de Cardiologia in Córdoba, Argentina.

We are facing a growing workforce crisis driven by changing demographics and societal expectations, especially in industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and supply chains. Leaders and employees seek meaningful, respectful work environments, and organizations need solutions to reduce employee turnover and workplace instability. Join Robert Martichenko and Matt Melrose as they introduce the Meaningful Employment Environment (MEE™) Business System, a framework for creating workplaces where trust, participation, and meaningful work enable both organizations and employees to thrive. Learn to assess your organization, prioritize improvements, and build people-centric workplaces.

More details soon on this presentation from Jones Radiology in Australia

Discover how psychological safety is crucial for effective lean management. This presentation explores creating an environment where team members feel safe to share ideas and take risks, leading to enhanced collaboration and continuous improvement. Learn strategies to foster psychological safety and unlock your organization's full potential for innovation and efficiency.

Learn about Biti's inspiring journey of transformation from a rich legacy spanning 40 years in conventional manufacturing into a Lean Enterprise. Vuu will delve into the company's Lean Product Process Development (LPPD) success and explore the seamless integration of a lean culture with the "Happy Biti’s" initiative, underscoring the commitment to innovation and employee wellbeing.

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Return to the essence of a lean enterprise and leverage digitalization to promote lean activities. Join Joe and Ricky as they share the improvement case of a machinery plant.

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Oksana will discuss how ride-hailing company Uklon is using hoshin kanri to advance its business and the difficulties of deploying a company's strategy in Ukraine.

Demand fluctuation is a critical issue in supply chains. So how can we minimize the risk of overstock and obsolete materials? Gulsah will explain how a process and software were developed at Wagner in Turkey to analyze customer order fluctuation over different periods of time, calculate the reliability coefficient between orders and actual demand, and subsequently review material orders.

Prof Roser toured 15 German car plants this year. In this session, he will share his findings.

Ayesha will talk about tackling the pressing issue of bureaucratic inefficiencies that hinder public sector effectiveness. This presentation will delve into the excessive red tape within South African government institutions, showcasing a successful case study in a local context, demonstrating how targeted interventions can lead to significant improvements in service delivery and operational efficiency.

As companies grow, they often lose the artisan spirit and product-focused innovation that defined their early days, replaced by layers of bureaucracy. This shift stifles agility and the continuous learning needed for crafting exceptional products. In this session, we’ll explore how to embed a scalable model for apprenticeship into every-day work, preserving the "Day 1" mindset even as the founder steps back. Learn strategies to sustain growth without sacrificing quality, build strong teams, and keep product excellence at the core of your business.

Faced with the difficulties of a project that didn't go as planned, Finnish telcom Elisa turned to Lean Thinking. Seija and Sari will tell us about the company's journey and how Kata became instrumental to its transformation.

DBS is how Danaher meets the ever-changing needs of their customers, partners and associates. Olaf will share a personal journey of constantly learning, iterating and improving the way the organization helps its customers solve their greatest challenges.

The Lean Community's favorite trivia game is BACK! Put your lean knowledge to the test in this fun game

Many people consider Lean only as a set of tools and techniques, with some Japanese buzzwords thrown in the mix... in other words, something only "experts" can understand. In reality, Lean goes hand in hand with people development and agility of systems. It breaks the silos across processes with one single goal: to survive and prosper in a world that is constantly changing.

How does Toyota handle radical change? The original story of the company's move from making looms to making cars is well documented, but the more recent moves to hardware and software convergence in cars (starting with Toyota Connected, then Woven by Toyota), and then to a mobility company (with Kinto) are also worth exploring. Don't miss this session by Pierre, who was at the forefront of Toyota's connected car efforts.

For the past six years, Eivind and Daryl have been visiting organizations large and small, private and public, old and young, across the Nordic countries. Many of these visits have been documented and described in Planet Lean and Lean Post articles. Joined by some special guests, Eivind and Daryl will tell us who they have met on their travels, what they have learned, and whether they have found that Kaizen spirit.

Join this session to hear the story of personal improvement journey of a General Manager and the experience of the local LEM Bulgaria leadership team with Hoshin Kanri as their compass for operational excellence, collaboration, and sustainability.

Looking back on 30 years of lean research, what do we know? First, that lean won’t stick if the CEO is not personally committed. Second, that “savings”-type projects of process improvement have a short-term effect and may make matters worse in the medium-term by shifting the problem to another part of the organization and putting more pressure on people. Third, that in the end it’s all about orienting towards customer satisfaction and deepening problem-solving and kaizen at all levels. If CEOs are central to adopting lean as part of their company’s DNA (and to the survival of these ideas and ideals), what do they look for in lean? Business results, certainly, but they are also very aware of the impact of market conditions on their results and of how their company’s culture and operating systems respond to external crises. The one thing that they really seek is adaptiveness - how to keep engaging teams in improving quality, flexibility and return-on-assets while responding to inevitable market crises. In this session, Michael asks what CEOs look for in a lean program and how we can give it to them.

Join us to wrap up the Lean Global Connection 2024, with reflections on what we learned.

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Earlier this year, a hyper-lean restaurant opened for just two months near Barcelona. The idea? Experimenting with the latest applications of Lean in the hospitality industry and learning as much as possible in a safe environment, where bottom-line concerns were not an issue. Join Oriol and Elsa as they take you through the story of how Experiment was created and run and share the key lessons learned.

In today's ever-changing global economy, the ability to adapt and transform internal structures, adopting a "fixed and flexible" approach, is more important than ever. This is especially true in the luxury sector, in which changing internal processes while maintaining and staying true to the craftsmanship that lies behind high-end products becomes a critical (although uncommon) undertaking. Join Nicola and Simona to learn about the transformation taking place at Pomellato, where the knowledge and creativity of skilled craftsmen and motivated teams are continuously fuelling the company's process of adaptation. By having people at the heart of its transformation, Pomellato manages to leverage lean to improve efficiency and agility, but also to respect the human touch that characterizes luxury craftsmanship.

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In this session, you'll learn how this organization in Indonesia was able to leverage the five dimensions of the Lean Transformation Framework to improve the furnace operation in its nickel smelter process.

Artificial Intelligence has landed, with lean practitioners as impacted as the rest of humanity. Elements of their jobs are being automated, and new robotic shortcuts are coming to all kinds of work (from customer service to self-driving cars, documentation, and software programming). Where should lean people start their AI journey? With the populist Gen-AI models promoting their magical writing and sketching capabilities? Deep in the algorithms and statistics?  Join this expert panel from the field of AI to help with this timely question.

Artificial Intelligence has landed, with lean practitioners as impacted as the rest of humanity. Elements of their jobs are being automated, and new robotic shortcuts are coming to all kinds of work (from customer service to self-driving cars, documentation, and software programming). Where should lean people start their AI journey? With the populist Gen-AI models promoting their magical writing and sketching capabilities? Deep in the algorithms and statistics?  Join this expert panel from the field of AI to help with this timely question.

Tube and Melda will take the audience through the improvements achieved in the Sales and Marketing departments at Omron Electronics using Lean Thinking.

Daily Management is the process of aligning the organization to the strategy, defining the variables that need to be controlled and their daily targets, and creating the problem-solving system that allows for rapid and effective problem solving by engaging the people. With this approach, we are better capable to achieve the levels of performance expected and create a learning environment to generate an improvement culture. By solving problems every day in a structured and systematic way, every company can respond to the changes in the environment much more rapidly.

José and Fabio will provide some real examples of DM implementation at TechnipFMC, discussing the benefits it afforded the company.

Adaptiveness is rooted in the principles of an operations management system. Marek will take you on a journey to the foundations of Lean that we too often forget to talk about. No buzzwords, no fancy tools; just back to basics.

Gianluca will tell us how Hoshin Kanri proved instrumental in leading the strategy of Still-Kion in a high-variability environment.

In this panel discussion, three senior lean leaders get together to discuss the role Lean plays in their organizations.

Talissia will share with the LGC audience how insurance broker WTW initiates its Lean journey by bringing a daily management process to leadership to help them define and deliver the strategy, but also create a culture of problem-solving across the organization.

Lean aims to maximize customer value by minimizing waste across all organizational processes. Inspired by several lessons from lean transformations, this session will demonstrate how Lean principles can be used to build and enhance an Enterprise Management System (EMS), fostering continuous improvement and greater value for customers.

Join us for a discussion on integrating Leader Standard Work and lean guiding principles to create a robust culture of people development. Understand the realities and challenges of promoting a framework that equips teams with continuous improvement and collaboration skills.

Join Mustafa's session to learn about the implementation of vocational training for the machinery sector in a vocational high school.

Learn about the application of Kaizen in the cabling area of Swiss Railways Infrastructure division. Stephan and Christian will tell us about the many concerns and suggestions submitted by employees since May last year and explain how the digital system records them and provides employees with live updates.

In an era where adaptability is not just an advantage but a necessity, how can lean principles drive resilience and growth in the most challenging environments? Kubair will delve into an innovative experiment conducted by Peace Through Prosperity (BringPTP), where a simple policy - the 'Three Cups of Tea' rule - transformed the lives and businesses of street-based micro-entrepreneurs in Pakistan. By limiting incidental costs and reinvesting savings, participants not only expanded their enterprises but also created local employment opportunities. This session will illustrate how lean thinking and agile methodologies were harnessed to eliminate waste, promote continuous improvement, and foster adaptability among individuals operating in volatile socio-economic conditions.

Explore how Lean Thinking is promoting progress across Africa. Ben will present organization cases as examples of what works and what doesn't, and will discuss the remaining challenges. Understand how lean principles are driving improvement and innovation on the continent.

Hear the story of the 10x productivity breakthrough at this digital media company in Ukraine. Volodymyr will explain how AI has become one of the tools Fabiosa Media uses to support its lean implementation.

Finnair Technology improved their production lead-time by using daily management in their equipment repair shops. Jonna and Rony will share how the battery repair shop control model was changed to a pull model and visual tools were introduced, which stabilized production and improved customer service.

Hear the story of the lean transformation of a factory producing parcel machines for the inPost capital group. Implementing a new strategy enabled spectacular results, boosting the team's commitment, launching a continuous improvement approach and giving the company a huge competitive advantage in the market. Wojciech will share real examples of how the way of thinking and daily routines changed at inPost Group. And continuous flow was just the beginning!

In this session, Haishi will share a number of examples of how Artificial Intelligence can be leveraged to support lean practices, including monitoring of workstation to ensure safety, automatically maintaining data pipelines to quickly adjust to new data streams, and facilitating informed decision making by providing users with the most relevant information.

After taking over an industrial bakery, small, family-owned craftsmanship bakery Borgesius in The Netherlands became the strategic partner of the country’s biggest supermarket chain. This brought many challenges to the company, because of increasingly demanding customer expectations vis-a-vis a need to set up a new  organization and chase internal losses to stay competitive. In this presentation, Philip will explain how Borgesius is adapting to changing customer values and creating stability by using some basic lean tools and insights.

Join Jaime and Christian to learn how the second largest producer of salmon in the world was able to boost productivity and quality, while reducing the variation between different plants.

When Larry Culp took over as CEO, the organization was a struggling, unfocused, 125+ years old conglomerate with $90+ Billion in revenue and a balance sheet heavily loaded with debt. After one of the largest lean industrial transformations in modern times, GE has now emerged as three separate, independent companies (GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare, and GE Vernova) with a clear focus on customer value, healthy balance sheets, innovative products, people development, and emerging business systems. Matt's session will touch on leadership’s commitment to Lean as one of the GE HealthCare core operating principles and on the learning and results the company's lean management system has generated. It has been a busy 5+ years at GE overall.

Join Yu-Hsiu as he talks about the challenges faced by the global motorcycle helmet industry and how Lean Product and Process Development (LPPD) was implemented in a company to improve its competitiveness.

In this presentation, Yaqui will take us through the business and investment environment in China and how customer needs are changes. She'll also explain how her company uses Lean to serve its customers and to improve its efficiency.

In this session, the lean leaders for GE HealthCare’s China region will share their learning and results as they have developed the lean management system in different parts of the organization, including the operations and commercial areas.

Learn about this interesting application of Lean Thinking in mining, as Gresaf and Arief share details on an improvement project focused on boosting the availability of digger bucket.

In this session, Mark and Andira discuss the current and future challenges of Indonesia - especially when it comes to skills - and the role of Lean Thinking and Practice in bridging that gap.

What are the accelerators, motivators, and key factors determining whether an improvement project is successful or not? Jaku will try to answer this question by tapping into his personal experience facilitating projects.

Taka Saito, a fashion retail expert from Japan, will explore how innovative inventory management is revolutionizing the fashion industry. He will discuss how companies like UNIQLO and ZARA utilize contrasting supply chain strategies - basic apparel demand versus fashion trends - while leveraging lean production to reduce excess inventory and boost profits. This session will highlight how these global giants are breaking away from traditional practices to create more agile, responsive supply chains, ultimately driving financial success in the competitive fashion market.

Find out what a work standard is and what it isn't in a fun way. You will teach Frederic how to make a sandwich through a series of iterations to reach the final result. This will be followed by a summary of the best way to design and teach a work standard.

In this session, Gustavo will explain how agile communication at Colombian airline Avianca enables effective collaboration among teams, accelerate decision making and guarantee the delivery of high-quality results.

The Houston Methodist Sugar Land Breast Care Center (BCC) faced long appointment lead times, which hindered early breast cancer detection and patient satisfaction. At its peak, lead times for screening mammograms extended to 75 days, frustrating both patients and physicians. The root causes included inconsistent scheduling templates, inefficient use of staff, and a lack of management systems to track demand and capacity. Utilizing lean methodology, the team implemented a phased approach aimed at fostering continuous improvement and enhancing operational efficiency. Change management played a key role in engaging the staff and driving the transformation.

Italian manufacturer FPZ SpA faced the challenge of managing an ever-growing repository of proprietary knowledge, crucial for maintaining its market position. By adopting an agile approach and embracing tools for knowledge management, the company streamlined its operations but continued generating vast amounts of information, making it difficult to harness all available knowledge efficiently. That's when they started exploring Generative AI, aiming to unlock the full potential of company knowledge. FPZ embarked on a journey to develop a system that integrates their proprietary knowledge with AI. That's how C.E.S.A.R.E. (Computerized Expert System for Advanced Responses and Engineering) was born, an AI-based tool designed to provide accurate, real-time responses by navigating both structured and unstructured company data. Join Andrea as he explains how C.E.S.A.R.E. improved operational efficiency, reducing time spent on manual information retrieval and ensuring consistent, high-quality technical responses.

In this engaging talk, John will share key strategies to integrate Lean Thinking into your organization, fostering a mindset of efficiency, innovation, and continuous optimization. Discover how Vanti ESP is transforming processes by involving people in an environment of transformation and lean culture.

Management systems often play a more critical role than we realize in organizational success. Their nature and focus significantly influence an organization's ability to adapt, innovate, and improve. To create effective management systems, we must align attitudes, behaviors, routines, and methods into a cohesive framework. Tapping into his extensive, multi-year experience running one of the leanest healthcare organizations in the world, Dr Fred takes us through his manifesto and invites us to delve deeper into the world of management systems.

No tool creates an inclusive work environment, but some organizational processes are more inclusive by design. Dubbed “Toyota’s Secret” by MIT’s Sloan Management Review, the A3 report is one of the most powerful tools for organizational effectiveness, creativity, and leadership in business. Learn how to use it to work with the full strength of your team’s collective intelligence. Solve problems and seize opportunities with a strategy alignment process that can (more) fully invite and leverage the brains, perspectives, and creativity of your team.

No tool creates an inclusive work environment, but some organizational processes are more inclusive by design. Dubbed “Toyota’s Secret” by MIT’s Sloan Management Review, the A3 report is one of the most powerful tools for organizational effectiveness, creativity, and leadership in business. It’s a strategy development and alignment process that you can use to (more) fully invite and leverage the brains, perspectives, and creativity of your team. In this panel, we’ll hear stories of how leaders across industries have done exactly this… strengthening their team while developing and executing on brilliant strategies.

In this session, Brian will explain how TechnipFMC is learning to teach and coach its people to become self-reliant.

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Faraz and Nima will tell the success story of their Amsterdam restaurants. Through constant experimentation, they were able to adapt to customer needs and achieve great levels of efficiency in their kitchens.

Lean is traditionally associated with manufacturing and, therefore, repetitive processes. In the tech industry, this has led to the widespread belief that lean is great for the maintenance part, but does not apply to software engineering, because it is too creative to be repetitive enough. But that’s forgetting that the real secret of Toyota is not in its factories, but in its engineering! Fabrice will look at examples in the tech industry of how Lean Thinking can improve the creative process to create better products and introduce not just continuous improvements but also breakthrough innovations.

Christophe's presentation will concentrate on the strategic integration of lean principles with technology to enable Jidoka - addressing minor deviations in real time to prevent significant operational setbacks. This proactive approach is crucial for maintaining high standards of quality and fostering continuous improvement across various industries.

Applying lean to services and offices can be a challenge: people see it as a concept only for production, not for working at a computer. In many companies, office workers are not aware of what quality and value mean in their processes, or for which value streams they work. They sometimes struggle with the concept of the internal customer. And thoughtlessly translating tools and methods from manufacturing won't work! The experience and practice of Bank BPH show that the lean can thrive in the service world. In this presentation, Dagmara will share examples of applying Toyota’s best practices in the world of services and offices.

Discover how Lean Thinking can you to help tackle uncertainty and plan for the future. João will explore how this methodology was brought into a university team to solve challenges and win real-world competitions.

In this session, you'll learn how UK law firm Weightmans (employing 1,400 people across nine offices) is applying Lean Thinking and Practice to virtual work that supports their front-line teams.

How can you make a difference in your community and beyond? Join Sergio to learn how we can take action and, together, be the change we want to see. This session will equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to adapt, go digital, and truly change things.