Developing your lean capability is essential for advancing your understanding and skills. As part of the UK Lean Summit experience, we offer pre-summit capability development workshops designed for focused, hands-on learning with expert facilitators.
Taking place on 7th April 2025 at The Spine in Liverpool, these intensive one-day sessions provide practical skills, interactive discussions, and real-world applications of Lean Thinking. With five key subject areas, including Lean Product & Process Development (LPPD) and Hoshin Kanri, these workshops help tailor your learning to your specific Lean challenges and objectives. Learn more about each of the workshops below…
What Makes the Workshops Worth Attending?
The Capability Development Workshops provide a unique opportunity to learn by doing, immersing you in real-world applications of lean thinking. With expert facilitators guiding each session, you’ll gain practical skills, meaningful insights, and tailored support specific to your challenges.
These intensive one-day workshops are structured for maximum impact, helping you tackle industry-specific obstacles through hands-on exercises and interactive discussions. You’ll also receive practical learning materials to support continued application. Plus, by joining, you’ll connect with like-minded professionals, exchange best practices, and be part of a growing community dedicated to continuous improvement.
How to Choose the Right Workshop for You
Choosing the right workshop starts with one key question: “What problem are you trying to solve?” To help attendees find the most relevant session, we’ve selected five key subject areas tailored to different Lean challenges.
Based on customer feedback from last year, we’ve introduced new workshops, including Lean Product & Process Development (LPPD) and Hoshin Kanri, alongside updates to previous sessions from recent years. Whether you’re looking to deepen your expertise or explore new lean methodologies, these workshops provide a focused, practical learning experience designed to support your lean learning journey.
Capability Development Workshop 2025 Subject Areas:
Applying Lean Thinking and Practice
Facilitator Background
David Brunt is the CEO of the Lean Enterprise Academy. David has been applying and researching Lean Thinking since 1990. As part of the Lean Enterprise Academy, he supports organizations in Lean transformation. Since 1997, he has worked closely with Dan Jones, contributing to Lean research and implementation.
He has coached Lean in 500+ value streams across industries, from manufacturing to financial services. Previously, he was Porsche Improvement Process (PVP) Manager, helping drive a fivefold sales increase. His insights appear in Lean Solutions and Creating Lean Dealers (2007). David holds an MBA from Cardiff Business School and co-authored Seeing the Whole Value Stream (2011) and Manufacturing Operations and Supply Chain Management (2001).
Understanding the Subject Area
When applying Lean Thinking & Practice, the Lean Transformation Framework is our structured approach to implementing Lean principles within an organisation. It focuses on driving sustainable improvements and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. This framework helps organisations assess their current state, identify improvement opportunities, and develop a clear action plan.
Key areas of this approach include leadership alignment, process improvement, and people development. Learn how to set goals, define key metrics, and engage employees in the transformation journey. By effectively applying the Lean Transformation Framework, organisations can achieve long-term success, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.
About the Workshop
The purpose of the workshop is to learn the key questions to ask when starting, deepening or reflecting on your lean journey. The Lean Transformation Framework (LTF) was developed (By John Shook) to help people better apply Lean Thinking & Practice to their unique situation. This is done through addressing the questions around the 5 critical dimensions needed to make sure you have a balanced approach and avoid transformation failure! You will Learn that the LTF approach is fractal and the questions apply to everyone and every level in any organisation.
Core Leadership Skills
Facilitator Background
David Marriott is a Senior Lean Coach at the Lean Enterprise Academy.
David gained his Lean expertise during 13 years at Toyota Motor Europe Manufacturing, working in the Purchasing Division to support suppliers in new product development and vehicle launches. Trained in the Toyota Production System (TPS), he helped suppliers improve performance and competitiveness, eventually leading Toyota’s UK Supplier Development Department, supporting 100 suppliers and coordinating the Toyota European Supplier Association (TEAM).
With 25+ years of continuous improvement experience, David has worked in 200+ manufacturing facilities and coached 700+ Lean thinkers. A practical problem solver, he simplifies Lean concepts, empowering leaders to teach and sustain transformation. He holds a first-class degree in Manufacturing Engineering & Management from Loughborough University.
Understanding the Subject Area
Core Leadership Skills are essential behaviors that enable leaders to support Lean Thinking & Practice while fostering a culture of continuous improvement. These skills include recognition, coaching, and constructive feedback, complemented by five key models designed to help leaders effectively develop their teams.
By developing these skills, leaders can create an environment where problem-solving, learning, and engagement thrive. This workshop explores the practical application of Core Leadership Skills in the context of lean, will help you shape the mindset and culture needed for sustained improvement within your organisation.
About the Workshop
Leaders are the single biggest influencing factor in creating the right environment to make a “Lean Transformation” happen. Their role in motivating people through the consistent application of “Core Leaderships Skills” is critical to ensure the right behaviours and culture are developed.
Learn about the Core Leadership Skills of Recognition, Coaching and Constructive Feedback and the supporting models that help to assist any Leader to diagnose when best to use what Skills. These are:
o The Red Line Model – Setting standard for process & behaviours.
o Three Types of Behaviour Model – How diagnose types of behaviours.
o ABC Model – How to deal with demonstrated behaviours.
o Situational Leadership – How to hand off tasks to people & support them effectively.
o Recognition – How to give personal, meaningful, and impactful recognition to motivate people to achieve more than the expected standard.
o Coaching – The difference between teach and coaching and how to improve you coaching skills to get people up to performing to the expected standard.
o Constructive Feedback – How to give meaningful feedback in a positive manner when people are not performing to the expected standard.
o The Cathedral Model – How to use the Core Skills together effectively through having the right foundation and quality & quantity of use.
• The Management Routines needed to trigger the use of core leadership skills.
Hoshin Kanri
Facilitator Background
Mark Reich is a Senior Lean Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute in the United States. Mark spent 23 years at Toyota, beginning in 1988 with six years in Japan’s Overseas Planning Division, where he worked with Chief Engineers on product planning—including the launch of Lexus.
In 1994, he joined the Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC), helping companies apply the Toyota Production System (TPS) beyond manufacturing, including in healthcare and non-profits. By 2001, Mark moved to Corporate Strategy, leading Toyota’s North American hoshin kanri process during a period of rapid growth. Since 2011, Mark has been with LEI, serving as Chief Engineer, Strategy, coaching executives in Lean transformations and hoshin kanri across various industries. He is fluent in Japanese.
Understanding the Subject Area
Hoshin planning is a management system that aligns – both vertically and horizontally – an organisation’s functions and activities with its strategic objectives.
Hoshin planning is also ideally a process that releases creativity in each Team Member as goals are developed in a dynamic, catch-ball process that involves a dialogue between each level of management about annual corporate objectives. This engaged dialogue promotes the capability of the organisation to manage based on purpose.
About the Workshop
Many leaders face difficulty not in creating a strategy, but in seeing it through—especially in distributed teams. This workshop provides a solution by guiding you through the hoshin kanri process (strategy development and deployment), ensuring your team stays on track toward achieving annual objectives. Get practical takeaways, not just theories, that empowers you to apply new skills as you progress. Leave with a clear framework to overcome common execution obstacles, ways to engage every level of your organisation, and learn how to break down strategic goals into actionable steps.
By participating, you will benefit from a combination of instruction, coaching, and peer learning – creating a rich environment where you can practice, reflect, and refine your approach to strategy deployment. The simulation-based case study will mirror a real-world application. Complete Assignments between live sessions to apply lessons. If you’re ready to move from planning to action, this workshop will equip you with the knowledge and confidence to make it happen.
Lean Product & Process Development (LPPD)
Facilitator Background
Professor Yu-Hsiu (Josh) Hung is a Professor at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan and Director at the Center for Lean Product Development at the University. Josh is a distinguished academic at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Taiwan, serving as a Professor in the Department of Industrial Design. He also directs the Lean Product and Process Development Laboratory at NCKU, focusing on integrating lean methodologies into product design and development.
His research interests encompass Human Factors Engineering and User Experience, contributing significantly to these fields. Josh is actively involved in advancing lean product development practices, aiming to enhance efficiency and innovation in design processes.
Understanding the Subject Area
Many organizations separate product, process, and service innovation from production and delivery, creating fragmented value chains. This disconnect leads to delays, cost overruns, and quality issues, ultimately harming both culture and performance.
Lean Product and Process Development (LPPD) addresses this by integrating the entire organization into the innovation process. More than just a product development strategy, LPPD is a proven system that enables companies to create sustainable, profitable value streams. By leveraging the full enterprise, it helps eliminate upstream issues from the start, ensuring efficiency, collaboration, and long-term success across industries.
About the Workshop
Design Thinking is all the rage in engineering, industrial design and product development. However there is a lean approach and in this workshop Josh will explore the alternatives including:
LAMDA – The basic learning cycle of lean product and process development that encompasses five classes of developer activity:
- Look: Practice first-hand observation, or go and see for yourself.
- Ask: Pose probing questions to understand the heart of the issue, e.g., asking why repeatedly to identify potential root causes.
- Model: Use engineering analysis, simulation, or prototypes to predict expected performance.
- Discuss: Talk about your observations, models, and hypotheses with peers, mentors, and developers of interfacing subsystems.
- Act: Test understanding experimentally or otherwise take action to validate learning.
The point of LAMDA is to encourage continuous, substantive learning and deep understanding within the development organisation.
Management Systems
Facilitator Background
Peter Watkins is a Senior Lean Coach at the Lean Enterprise Academy. Peter has extensive experience coaching senior leadership teams in multinational environments, helping organizations identify business improvement opportunities and enhance customer focus. A strategic thinker and structured problem solver, he excels at managing change and achieving strategic targets across all levels. With 30+ years of continuous improvement experience, he has helped teams apply Lean Thinking in HR, Finance, Engineering, Sales, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and more across industries such as Automotive, Aerospace, and Shared Services.
He spent four years as Global VP of Operational Excellence at APTIV and 12 years at GKN, where he introduced Flow of Value Thinking to drive Lean transformation. At ArvinMeritor, he progressed from Quality Team Leader to Director of CI Strategy across Europe, Asia, and Africa, developing Lean practices in the extended value chain and supplier base.
Peter holds an MSc in Lean Operations from Cardiff and is passionate about designing and improving management systems to drive and sustain Lean transformation—because it’s all about the people!
Understanding the Subject Area
A robust Lean Management System starts with ensuring the “day to day” work is performed to current standards and kept stable when problems occur – A Performance Management System. This foundation must be in place before you start planning & organising any improvement activities to achieve Long Term Goals & Objectives (Management System for Improvement), otherwise improvements won’t be sustained!
A critical dimension when transforming your organisation is to ensure the necessary leadership activities and behaviours are in place to support and sustain the changes required.
About the Workshop
This workshop aims to provide a deep understanding of how to situationally design and develop a Lean Management System at every level to support both daily performance and continuous improvement. Participants will explore the key success factors necessary to prevent management system failures and ensure effective implementation. Additionally, the workshop will guide attendees in evaluating and diagnosing gaps in their current management systems, helping them identify areas for enhancement.
By the end, participants will have a clear understanding of why organisations require two distinct types of management systems and how to apply them effectively for sustained success.
Summary
The Capability Development Workshops are a key part of the UK Lean Summit 2025 experience, offering a full day of hands-on learning led by expert facilitators. These interactive sessions provide a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between theory and practice, equipping participants with practical skills, valuable insights, and a deeper understanding of Lean Thinking.
Whether you’re attending the Summit or joining just for the workshops, these sessions offer a standalone learning experience at The Spine in Liverpool on 7th April 2025. Don’t miss this chance to develop your lean capability we look forward to seeing you there!
Visit Toyota UK Plants in 2025
A key focus at this year’s Summit is Toyota’s Floor Management Development System (FMDS) and its connection to the Toyota Production System (TPS). Attendees will have an exclusive opportunity on Thursday, 10th April, to visit Toyota’s Engine Manufacturing Plant in Deeside, North Wales, or the Vehicle Manufacturing Plant in Burnaston, Derby.
All proceeds from the visits will go to Toyota’s Charitable Trust, supporting important causes. Thanks to your incredible support, we raised over £24,000 in 2024!
Spaces are limited, and over 60% of tickets have already been sold – secure your place soon to avoid missing out!