Lean Business Offer

Enterprise Ireland’s Lean Business Offer is designed to encourage clients to adopt Lean business principles in their organisation to increase performance and competitiveness.
Lean tools and techniques are helping companies across the globe to address competitiveness issues within their businesses by building the capability of their people to identify problems and improve operations.

The Lean business offer is not just for manufacturing companies. Software and internationally traded services companies can avail of funding under the Lean Offer to drive improvements and efficiencies in their business. Click AGILE-Lean to learn more about how the Lean offer can be used to support software companies.

The Lean Business Offer is made up of three levels of support

  1. LeanStart
  2. LeanPlus
  3. LeanTransform

Each level of support is characterised by increasing levels of capability in implementing Lean business principles and other best practice approaches to drive company awareness, adoption and integration of Lean tools and techniques.
Lean publications available for download:
Becoming Lean; Practical Steps to Build Competitiveness [pdf]
Becoming a Lean Service Business; Practical steps to build competitiveness, capacity & capability [pdf]
Lean Business Ireland Case Studies
The Lean publications provide the basics of Lean to help you on your journey to achieve world class levels of competitiveness. They outline the first steps along the lean journey and signposts you to the next part of the journey.

1. LeanStart

LeanStart provides an introduction to Lean concepts and allows you to gain an understanding of what the tools and techniques can do for your company in a short, focused engagement. Companies can apply for grant support towards the cost of hiring a Lean consultant/trainer to undertake a short in-company assignment which will;

  • introduce Lean principles and Agile processes
  • achieve immediate cost reduction targets
  • lay a foundation for future Lean or productivity improvement projects
  • incorporate First Steps to Green Competitiveness Guidebook

Assignments will typically be carried out over eight to ten weeks.  Companies will be eligible to receive support for a maximum of seven consultancy days.  Maximum funding is €5,000. For more detailed information or to apply, go to LeanStart.

2. LeanPlus

Companies looking to undertake a Lean project over a medium-term period can apply to Enterprise Ireland for a Business Process Improvement Grant to support the costs of the LeanPlus Assignment. A LeanPlus assignment is a medium-term business process improvement project which will result in sustained use of Lean techniques and related methodologies by the company, and will achieve significant measurable gains in capabilities and competitiveness.

The LeanPlus assignment should:

  • deliver significant productivity improvement and cost reductions,
  • embed a culture of business improvement and lean techniques to a cohort of trained staff, and
  • introduce a programme to pursue company-wide improvement.

Assignments may vary in size and scope but will typically be completed within six months and will not exceed a total project cost of €100,000.  For more detailed information or to apply, go to Business Process Improvement Grant.

3. LeanTransform

LeanTransform is a large scale, extensive and holistic company transformation programme delivered by an external training team of international reputation. The main support mechanism is by training grant; support is available for consultancy costs for SMEs, but not large companies.
Lean Transform projects should:

  • deliver company-wide transformation in culture and productivity performance,
  • embed the competencies necessary for on-going competitiveness gains in the company, and
  • result in sustainable improvement in the business and across its supply chain.

The LeanTransform initiative is primarily designed for larger companies with significant operations who can demonstrate to Enterprise Ireland that they have existing capability and resources to implement a programme of this scale.
Assignments will typically run for at least one year.

The assignment is preceded by a scoping exercise.  For more detailed information or to apply, go to LeanTransform.

Lean Education and Training Providers

Enterprise Ireland recognises the importance of a formal and structured approach to certified education in Lean business principles and techniques. The Lean education courses are seen as a natural complement to the Lean Business initiative. Learn more about Lean Education and Training Providers.