After a sell-out event in 2023, we are back in Liverpool for our annual UK Lean Summit. Join us on the 23rd-24th April 2024 for the best lean event of the year. Early bird registrations for the summit have now ended. View the full agenda below. Want to learn more about our 2023 event? Watch the highlights here.
Also don’t miss your chance to improve your lean skills by attending or pre-summit Capability Development Workshops. Learn more about the workshops here.
Why Should I Attend?
- Learn what the best and latest learning processes & materials are for developing capability.
- Discuss your challenges and build your own network of lean thinkers. It’s the perfect opportunity for new and experienced lean practitioners to network with others.
- Keynote Presentations from inspirational speakers and organisations including Jim Womack, Toyota UK, Hologic and more!
- Choose from 4 out of 16 Learning Sessions -take a deep dive and learn how companies have situationally applied lean thinking & practice to solve their problems.
- Companies sharing their learnings and/or exhibiting the latest developments in lean training materials, software and recruitment.
The Purpose, Process & People
What is the Purpose of the Summit?
The purpose of the Summit is as follows:
- Share how lean thinking can be used to solve the problems of today and tomorrow.
- Raise consciousness of the latest developments in Lean Thinking and Practice.
- Provide insight into practical ways to get started, deepen or enhance your Lean journey and transformation.
- Enable participants to build their own network of Lean Thinkers.
The Process – How do we organise the Summit?
How can lean thinking and practice help us navigate the key problems facing us today?
- The productivity challenge.
- Supply chain disruption.
- The environmental crisis.
- The growing use of digital.
- Managing inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.
- Talent development and retention
- Developing new products and services to deliver value for customers.
The People – Who should come?
Anyone trying to apply Lean Thinking & Practice to their unique situation or organisation. Our summit helps develop your lean network because we:
Assemble the best Lean practitioners, sensei and participants to learn and share together.
Build time into the programme for participants to network and reflect.
Provide a variety of learning situations. This includes Pre-Summit capability development workshops on leading edge topics, keynote talks, interactive learning sessions and panel discussions.
Enable groups from the same organisations to come to the Summit to learn and assess their situation.
What Attendees say about the UK Summit
“Engaging and Informative”
“Engaging and informative, with interactive elements and honest reflections from the presenters.”
“Inspiring and Powerful“
Inspiring stories and powerful messages. Definitely will be attending next year!
“Real Life Practical Cases”
“The practical cases really brought the sessions to life and helped me clearly understand the content.”
Tickets
Early bird tickets for our UK Lean Summit are now available! The summit will be held on the 23rd-24th April 2024 at The Spine in Liverpool.
Please be aware accommodation for the event is NOT included with this ticket.
Visit our FAQs page here for venue details, recommended accommodation, parking and more.
If your organisation requires to pay via invoice please contact us here.
Want to bring your team to the UK Lean Summit? Contact us here for group discounts.
**Please be aware our 2024 Toyota Burnaston Engine Plant Visit has now SOLD OUT.**
Did you know you can attend our “Capability Development Workshops” for just for just £450.00+VAT? Learn more here.
Learn more about our Toyota UK Plant Visits & Capability Development Workshops below:
Summit Agenda
Registration
Introduction and Welcome
Setting the scene for our 2024 event. Peter will explain the agenda and the key themes the Summit addresses.
Peter Watkins - Senior Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy
Keynote: The Democratisation of Lean – 7 Challenges for our Time & the Lean Transformation Framework
Last year, Dan Jones talked about democratising problem solving – enabling everyone at every level to engage in finding and solving their problems. How do we democratise lean, enabling more people to learn and use it? In this keynote Dave Brunt discusses 7 challenges for our time and why we need everyone applying a lean thinking way to them.
David Brunt - CEO, Lean Enterprise Academy
Kaizen - Using No-Code and AI
In this Keynote, Mike Moore, who specialises in IT related projects and the provision of Virtual IT Director services, will be presenting a 30-minute keynote on Kaizen – using no code and AI.
Mike Moore - Managing Partner, Mike Moore & Associates
Coffee, Tea & Networking
Learning Session: Business Process Improvement
Business process improvement is a methodology used to streamline and optimise processes within an organisation to improve customer value, efficiency, reduce waste, and increase productivity. It involves capturing and analysing the current flow of work activities, identifying areas for improvement, and implementing changes to achieve better value outcomes for team members, customers and the organisation.
Learn how Collins Aerospace has been applying the methodology to their business processes.
Martin Lunn - Director of Continuous Improvement, Collins Aerospace
Mark Elston - Lean Manager UK, Collins Aerospace
Christian Bardoux - Lean Manager France, Collins Aerospace
Anna Maria Jagodzinska - Lean Manager Italy Collins Aerospace
Learning Session: How to build a Lean Management System for Subsea Services
TechnipFMC is a leading technology provider to the traditional and new energies industry; delivering fully integrated projects, products, and services. As a global leader in the traditional and renewable energy industry, TechnipFMC delivers innovative technologies, systems, and services to meet the world’s energy needs now and in the future.
In this learning session Alex Aske and his team will explore how they built a lean management system and their key learnings along the way.
Alex Aske - VP Subsea Services Norway UK, TechnipFMC
Øystein Varden - Director Onshore Services, TechnipFMC
Julie Garmann - Supply Chain Manager, TechnipFMC
Learning Session: Design Thinking and Lean Product and Process Development
Design Thinking is all the rage in engineering, industrial design and product development. However there is a lean approach and in this workshop we 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.
Professor Yu-Hsiu Hung - National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
Learning Session: How to Develop A3 Problem Solving Capability
A3 8 Step Practical Problem Solving (PPS) is a structured and effective problem-solving process used by individuals and teams to solve challenging, medium term, business and operational problems, originally pioneered by Toyota.
Learn how the Canal and River Trust have been developing problem solving capability using the 8-step A3 process.
Andy Glyde - Internal Audit & Risk Manager, Canal and River Trust
David Baldacchino - Head Of Operations Support, Canal and River Trust
Lunch & Networking
Keynote: Flexible Motivated Members!
The role of Toyota Lean Management Centre (TLMC) is the transfer of skills and management best practice based on their highly acclaimed and successful Toyota Production System (TPS) and global Toyota Way management concepts.
In this keynote, find out what Toyota does with its people to support their development.
John Prince - Group Leader, Senior, Toyota Lean Management Centre
Gary Norgrove - Group Leader, Toyota Lean Management Centre
Keynote: Culture Change at CSL Seqirus
CSL Seqirus are one of the world’s largest influenza vaccine companies with a singular global focus on influenza. At our 2023 Summit they shared how they have been developing team working using employee involvement processes.
Learn how their lean journey is progressing and what they have learned along the way.
Nigel Hilton - VP of Manufacturing and Site Head, CSL Seqirus
Gordon Pearson - Head of Operational Excellence, CSL Seqirus
Learning Session: How Toyota Develops Capability
Learn how Toyota develops capability.
Gary Norgrove - Group Leader, Toyota Lean Management Centre
John Prince - Group Leader, Senior, Toyota Lean Management Centre
Learning Session: Using Lean to Develop Virtual Processes
Weightmans are a top 40 UK law firm, with more than 1,400 people working from our offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle.
Learn how they are applying lean thinking and practice to virtual work that supports their front line teams.
Stephen Hepplestall - Business Change Project Manager, Weightmans
Andrew Johnston - IT Training Team Leader, Weightmans
Learning Session: The CSL Seqirus Lean Journey
CSL Seqirus are one of the world’s largest influenza vaccine companies with a singular global focus on influenza. At our 2023 Summit they shared how they have been developing team working using employee involvement processes.
Learn how their lean journey is progressing and what they have learned along the way.
Gordon Pearson - Head of Operational Excellence, CSL Seqirus
Scott Dake - Operational Excellence Lead, CSL Seqirus
Kenichi Okamoto - Operational Excellence Lead, CSL Seqirus
John Riley - CSL Seqirus
Learning Session: London Stone: A Lean Transformation Story
London Stone is a market leader in the supply of natural stone paving to clients throughout the UK. Renowned for their comprehensive range of sawn paving and bespoke stone, they provide high quality products, excellent value for money and superior customer service to a broad range of client types that include landscape contractors, garden designers, property developers, architects and homeowners.
Learn how they apply lean thinking and practice across their organisation – from sales to operations and distribution.
Gavin Walley - Co-founder & Fulfilment Director, London Stone
Michael Forkes - London Stone
Gavin Gracias - London Stone
Marius Catrinoi - Operations Director, London Stone
Coffee, Tea & Networking
Keynote: Jim Womack on Lean Thinking
Jim Womack and Dan Jones led MIT’s International Motor Vehicle Research Program (IMVP), which introduced the term “lean” to describe Toyota’s revolutionary management system.
Based on that research, Womack coauthored The Machine That Changed the World (Macmillan/Rawson Associates, 1990), Lean Thinking (Simon & Schuster, 1996), Lean Solutions (Simon & Schuster, 2005), and Seeing the Whole Value Stream (Lean Enterprise Institute, 2011).
In addition, he founded the Lean Enterprise Institute in 1997 as a nonprofit research, education, publishing, and conferencing company to ensure new knowledge about lean thinking and practices would be available to the worldwide public, making things better for individuals, organizations, and society. Womack’s leadership of LEI inspired global efforts to establish lean institutes in other countries, which ultimately grew into the Lean Global Network, chartered in 2007.
Jim Womack - Founder and Senior Advisor, Lean Enterprise Institute
Day 1 Close
Peter Watkins - Senior Lean Coach, LEA
Evening Activity
Breakfast & Coffee
Introduction
We welcome back our Summit participants for Day 2 of the UK Lean Summit 2024.
Sharon Visser - Senior Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy
Keynote: Creating a Lean Culture, the Mancunian Way
Hologic are as a leading innovator in women’s health, helping healthcare professionals around the world diagnose and treat their patients with precision, certainty and confidence.
Hologic share their journey from switching to produce covid diagnostic testing during the corona virus pandemic through to developing “The Mancunian Way” at their Wythenshaw site.
James O'Sullivan - Site Director, Hologic
John Blacklock - Senior Manager, Continuous Improvement, Hologic
Keynote: Lean Transformation Research - 2024 Update
Peter Watkins, Senior Lean Coach at LEA, will be providing findings on our Lean Transformation Framework research and how it has helped organisations to apply lean thinking and practice.
Peter Watkins - Senior Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy
Keynote: Developing Lean Product and Process Development Capability
In this keynote, Professor Yu-Hsiu Hung shares how LPPD is being taught as a more effective way to design and develop products and processes.
Professor Yu-Hsiu Hung - National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
Keynote: In search of Werewolves, the Future of Mobility?
Jon Hunt is the Senior Manager for Hydrogen Transformation at Toyota GB and has worked in the automotive industry for over 34 years, 30 of which have been in a variety of sales and marketing roles in the UK and the European head office for both the Toyota and Lexus Brands.
Since 2014 Jon has been responsible for the commercialisation of the Toyota hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) programme in the UK and has helped shape the wider nascent hydrogen market and national infrastructure provision.
Regularly involved in presenting and discussing the wider adoption of low emission technology Jon is the Chair of the Society of Motor Manufacturers Hydrogen Fuel Cell Task Force and from 2017 Jon has been recognised every year in the top of the Green Fleet Top most influential list and was also awarded Alternative Fuel Champion in 2020.
Jon Hunt - Senior Manager, Hydrogen Transformation Manager, Toyota GB
Coffee, Tea & Networking
Learning Session: The CSL Seqirus Lean Journey
CSL Seqirus are one of the world’s largest influenza vaccine companies with a singular global focus on influenza. At our 2023 Summit they shared how they have been developing team working using employee involvement processes.
Learn how their lean journey is progressing and what they have learned along the way.
Gordon Pearson - Head of Operational Excellence, CSL Seqirus
Scott Dake - Operational Excellence Lead, CSL Seqirus
Kenichi Okamoto - Operational Excellence Lead, CSL Seqirus
John Riley - CSL Seqirus
Learning Session: How Toyota Develops Capability
Learn how Toyota develops capability.
Gary Norgrove - Group Leader, Toyota Lean Management Centre
John Prince - Group Leader, Senior, Toyota Lean Management Centre
Learning Session: London Stone: A Lean Transformation Story
London Stone is a market leader in the supply of natural stone paving to clients throughout the UK. Renowned for their comprehensive range of sawn paving and bespoke stone, they provide high quality products, excellent value for money and superior customer service to a broad range of client types that include landscape contractors, garden designers, property developers, architects and homeowners.
Learn how they apply lean thinking and practice across their organisation – from sales to operations and distribution.
Gavin Walley - Co-founder & Fulfilment Director, London Stone
Michael Forkes - London Stone
Gavin Gracias - London Stone
Marius Catrinoi - Operations Director, London Stone
Learning Session: How to Develop Rapid Problem Solving Capability
Hologic are as a leading innovator in women’s health, helping healthcare professionals around the world diagnose and treat their patients with precision, certainty and confidence.
In this learning session, Hologic share how they have been developing Rapid Problem Solving capability linking it to “The Mancunian Way” at their Wythenshaw site.
James O'Sullivan - Site Director, Hologic
John Blacklock - Senior Manager, Continuous Improvement, Hologic
Lunch & Networking
Keynote: The Lean Tech Manifesto
In 2013, as Theodo began scaling, we faced a significant challenge: maintaining our Agile culture. The Agile Manifesto, while foundational, fell short in guiding us for our scaling challenges. This realisation led us on an exploratory journey to uncover the secrets behind tech giants that managed to scale successfully while keeping bureaucracy to a minimum. Our findings pointed us towards Lean Thinking. We discovered it was not only an early inspiration of Agile, but also for Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos in how to grow Apple and Amazon. We also discovered that these tech giants who had adopted Lean Thinking principles, added tech innovation to preserve team autonomy amidst expansive growth.
We captured these learnings in a book called The Lean Tech Manifesto. The Lean Tech Manifesto is the Agile Manifesto that scales, the set of principles to help you create and maintain an Agile culture in a tech organization of multiple teams, to deliver more value to the customer, faster, cheaper, while continuing to innovate. Fabrice Bernhard will share these principles with examples from Linux, Amazon, Tesla, General McChrystal, and his own journey at Theodo.
Fabrice Bernhard - Co-founder & CTO, Theodo
Learning Session: Design Thinking & Lean Product and Process Development (LPPD)
Design Thinking is all the rage in engineering, industrial design and product development. However there is a lean approach and in this workshop we 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.
Professor Yu-Hsiu Hung - National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
Learning Session: What are the Core Leadership Skills and Behaviours to Lead Lean?
Core Leadership Skills are the key behaviours required by leaders to support lean thinking & practice and help create a culture of continuous improvement. They include recognition, coaching and constructive feedback supported by five other simple models to enable leaders to become more effective in developing their team members.
In this session, learn about the benefits of the Core Leadership Skills and discover how to develop and practically apply them in the context of enhancing your Lean journey and creating the desired mindset and culture in your organisation.
David Marriott - Senior Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy
Peter Watkins - Senior Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy
Learning Session: Using lean to develop virtual processes
Weightmans are a top 40 UK law firm, with more than 1,400 people working from our offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle.
Learn how they are applying lean thinking and practice to virtual work that supports their front line teams.
Stephen Hepplestall - Business Project Change Manager, Weightmans
Andrew Johnston - IT Training Team Leader, Weightmans
Learning Session: Business Process Improvement
Business process improvement is a methodology used to streamline and optimise processes within an organisation to improve customer value, efficiency, reduce waste, and increase productivity. It involves capturing and analysing the current flow of work activities, identifying areas for improvement, and implementing changes to achieve better value outcomes for team members, customers and the organisation.
Learn how Collins Aerospace has been applying the methodology to their business processes.
Martin Lunn - Director of Continuous Improvement, Collins Aerospace
Coffee, Tea & Networking
Keynote: Pulling the Lessons from the Last 2 Days Together
In this session we look at the themes and key questions posed during the Summit. What have we learned? What will each of us do next?
David Brunt - CEO, Lean Enterprise Academy
Peter Watkins - Senior Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy
David Marriott - Senior Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy
Jim Womack - Founder and Senior Advisor, Lean Enterprise Institute
Day 2 Close
David Brunt - CEO, Lean Enterprise Academy