About Us

In response to the success and impact that lean institutes led by Jim Womack (USA), Dan Jones (UK) and Jose Ferro (Brazil) had over the past decade, a community of lean thinkers and a network of organizations gradually began to form around the globe. This network was formally chartered in September 2007. Currently, the Lean Global Network is comprised of 16 nonprofit, education-oriented organizations throughout the world – members of the network are known as Affiliates.

What are the Affiliates?

The Purpose of affiliates is to help individuals and organizations undertake lean journeys and transformations. Affiliates are expected to 1) develop lean knowledge – via new research and translations; 2) disseminate this lean knowledge, and 3) most importantly – build a community of lean practitioners and leaders to undertake lean transformations within organizations.

The Process to develop and disseminate knowledge, build a lean community, develop leaders, and support lean transformations required that Affiliates engage in four core activities:

Conferences and summits help increase awareness, provide networking opportunities, and share new learning and success stories;

Educational and training events consist of public and in-company workshops or training events where training in the use of tools, policy deployment, and lean management practices such as the A3 process are provided. It is here that affiliate staff also work on-site to help coach and guide organizational transformations in real time. In the future, educational activities will also consist of alternative delivery methods such as web-based e-learning, webinars, simulations, peer-to-peer exchanges, and other delivery methods;

Publications and learning materials consist of books, videos, training materials, etc; and in the future more creative use of the internet and other media to tailor and target lean content as needed and when needed by the end user;

Action research, industry partnerships and lean R&D involves affiliates partnering with organizations to conduct in-company or organizational learning experiments. This work in the gemba helps generate and validate new knowledge and best practices; as well as providing insights via the customer pull for new educational programs, learning materials and publications.

And finally, People. Affiliates are led by leading lean thinkers – students of the Toyota Production System and, in many cases, ex-Toyota trained leaders. At the affiliates you will find:

• Lean experts both institute staff and members of its Board; or as part of its network of coaches, instructors and researchers.
• Operational support personnel who understand and practice lean techniques as they lead their institute’s value streams as well as lead key institute operations such as communications, website development, event and workshop support, etc.
• Industry partners who provide the gemba for lean learning experiments and coaching opportunities.
• Hopefully recent college graduates and students who will create the pipeline of next generation lean thinkers and doers and to ensure lean transformations will be sustained.

To learn more about each affiliate, select the “Our Affiliates” tab above.