Lean Management - Systems, Routines, and Tools for Effective KVP

Many companies are familiar with Lean methods – yet improvement often remains sporadic: workshops generate ideas, but in daily life, clear routines, standards, and a leadership and control system that sustain KVP are missing.

The online seminar Lean Management is the second building block of the 3-part seminar series (Mindset – Management – Migration) and translates Lean from attitude into concrete leadership practice: How is improvement led, controlled, and stably anchored in daily business – without activism, tool-hopping, or KPI cosmetics?

The 5M Lean House serves as an orientation framework: After the Lean Mindset, it now addresses the management part of the system – that is, the "operational logic" through which teams reliably deliver performance and systematically improve.

Scope & Structure

The seminar is divided into two interlocking blocks:
Block 1 lays the foundation (origin, culture, system logic, and leadership). Block 2 translates this foundation into methodological competence: You will get to know central Lean tools – and, most importantly, when each tool is useful and how it is effectively anchored in daily life through standards, daily management, and problem-solving.

Contents:

Block 1 – Foundation: Origin, Culture, System Logic & Leadership:
This block creates a common understanding of where Lean comes from, what it fundamentally means, and why it functions as a management system (not just a collection of tools).

- Roots of the Toyota Production System (TPS): Origins and basic ideas, including the logic of Just-in-Time and Jidoka (quality in the process) – as the basis for quality, costs, and delivery capability.
- 3M as a thinking framework: Waste (Muda), Imbalance (Mura), and Overload (Muri) as typical causes of instability – and as starting points for improvement efforts.
- Quality thinking & Deming’s influence: Why the systematic handling of variation, learning, and leadership is a central part of modern improvement work (historical context of the quality movement in Japan).
- Toyota Way & cultural principles: Lean as a combination of continuous improvement and respect for people – culture as a prerequisite for methods to work at all.
- From TPS to "Lean": How Lean becomes tangible as a management and transformation logic – including principles like Value, Value Stream, Flow, Pull, Perfection (according to Womack/Jones).
- Placement in the 5M Lean House: Lean Management as the "operational logic" for KVP: Goals, control, routines, standards, and problem-solving are interwoven as a system.
- Leadership in the KVP context: Setting an example, aligning decisions with the process, enabling learning – moving away from "firefighting" towards stable daily leadership based on deviations.
- Roles & responsibilities: Clarity on interfaces between leadership, team, process responsibility, and (internal) Lean/OpEx roles – so that improvements are not left to individuals.
- Proper use of goals & KPIs: Metrics as a navigation system (not an end in themselves): What needs to be visible for teams to detect deviations early and counteract effectively?
- Standards & stability: Standards as the definition of the normal state – and as a requirement to even recognize deviations as problems (and thus as learning opportunities).
- Daily Management & on-site leadership: Structured routines (short cycles, clear escalation, transparent decisions) – Shop floor/"Gemba" logic as a leadership principle.
- Push vs. Pull as a fundamental decision: How control logic influences inventories, lead times, and responsiveness – and why "Pull" is more than just Kanban.
- Why Lean fails (especially in SMEs): Typical stumbling blocks like tool-hopping, lack of routines, "KPI cosmetics," parallel worlds between daily business and improvement – and how to counteract systemically.

Block 2 – Methodological Competence: Tools, Practical Logic & Transfer:
In this block, you will learn central Lean methods – focusing on application logic, prerequisites, typical error patterns, and integration into leadership, standards, and daily management.

- Creating stability & visibility: 5S as the basis for standards, visual work, and reproducible processes (including sensible audit/sustainability logic).
- Speed up without chaos: SMED as a lever for flexibility, smaller batches, and better predictability – linked to standards and roles in daily life.
- Ensuring availability: TPM as a system to reduce disruptions and strengthen ownership – complemented by a pragmatic OEE logic (measurement, types of losses, sensible utilization instead of "number hunting").
- Steering with clarity: KPI/board logic and visualization on the shop floor: Which indicator belongs where, how does it lead to a decision, how does escalation work?
- Value Stream Thinking: Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to make material and information flow visible and derive improvement priorities.
- Implementing flow & pull in practice: JIT, One-Piece Flow, and Kanban as a set of principles – including prerequisites, rules, and typical implementation errors.
- Problem-solving as a routine: PDCA/Kaizen as a daily learning loop – from deviation through cause to sustainable measure (not just an "action").
- Quality in the process: Andon/Stop-the-line thinking, Poka Yoke, and Jidoka principles as elements to recognize errors early and not pass them on.
- Gemba/Genchi Genbutsu: Gathering facts on-site, understanding processes, cleanly separating cause and effect – as a countermeasure to "gut feeling management."
- Lean Administration: Applying central Lean principles to indirect areas (planning, office, interfaces) – so that Lean does not end at the factory gate.

Transfer Focus (across both blocks): All content is consistently transferred to typical practical areas (production, PPS/planning, logistics, quality, maintenance) – with the aim that you take away concrete starting points, initial steps, and a clear system logic for your area.

Target Group

The online seminar is aimed at all those who do not want to leave improvement work to chance, but rather want to systematically lead, control, and effectively anchor Lean/KVP in everyday life - regardless of whether they have operational responsibility or work in a process-oriented or planning capacity. It is particularly suitable for executives and junior executives (e.g., team leaders, master/supervisor, department heads) as well as for Lean/KVP responsibles, internal multipliers, and roles from Operational Excellence or Continuous Improvement. Also benefiting are process owners from production, production planning and control (PPC), logistics, quality, maintenance, and related areas who want to establish stability, transparency, standards, and problem-solving as daily routines - whether to stabilize an existing Lean system or for a structured (re-)start of a Lean/KVP initiative. The content is applicable across industries and can be transferred to all work environments where processes are designed, managed, and continuously improved.

Certificate

At the end, there will be an online knowledge test (multiple choice) as a learning and transfer check. A participation certificate will be issued in any case. In the event of passing the test successfully, the participation certificate will be supplemented with a corresponding note on the successful completion of the knowledge test.