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Maintenance Management

Lean Thinking

Lean is widely adopted and widely misapplied, usually as a cost reduction exercise that removes the slack a process depended on. This course teaches it as originally intended: identifying what the customer actually values and removing everything that does not contribute to it. Delegates work through value stream mapping, the categories of waste and how to see them on a real process, flow and pull, and the improvement cycle that sustains change. Substantial attention goes to the failure modes: tools applied without understanding, improvements that shift a bottleneck rather than removing it, and the point at which a workforce stops volunteering ideas because the last round cost people their jobs.

5 day courseRegister NowRequest Proposal

Course objectives

  • Define value from the customer's perspective rather than the organisation's
  • Map a value stream and identify where time and effort are actually consumed
  • Recognise the categories of waste on a real process
  • Apply flow and pull principles to a specific operation
  • Distinguish removing waste from removing necessary buffer
  • Run an improvement cycle that sustains the change
  • Recognise why lean programmes lose workforce support

Who should attend

  • Operations and production managers
  • Continuous improvement practitioners
  • Supervisors and team leaders
  • Quality and process engineers
  • Service delivery managers applying lean outside manufacturing

Course outline

  1. 01What lean is, and the most common misreading of it
  2. 02Value defined from the customer's perspective
  3. 03Value stream mapping a real process
  4. 04The categories of waste and learning to see them
  5. 05Flow, pull and levelling
  6. 06Buffer against waste, and the danger of confusing them
  7. 07Improvement cycles that hold
  8. 08Why lean programmes lose support, and how to avoid it

Scheduled sessions

Scheduled sessions for Lean Thinking
DatesVenueFormatPriceRegister
12 to 16 October 2026Accra, GhanaClassroomR11,995 per delegateRegister Now
12 to 16 October 2026Dar es Salaam, TanzaniaClassroomR11,995 per delegateRegister Now
15 to 19 October 2026Maseru, LesothoClassroomR11,995 per delegateRegister Now
2 to 6 November 2026Mbabane, EswatiniClassroomR11,995 per delegateRegister Now
15 to 19 November 2026Maputo, MozambiqueClassroomR11,995 per delegateRegister Now
25 to 29 November 2026Pretoria, South AfricaClassroomR11,995 per delegateRegister Now

Lean Thinking

From R11,995

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