An 8-part lecture series giving a sound introduction to the practical concepts of applied lean.

The EU-Japan Centre Lean Masterclass consisted of lectures, by Professor Richard Keegan, focussing on "Getting things done". The series was recorded in front of an audience consisting largely of former participants in the Centre's WCM and Lean in Europe activities. As well as being the Advisor to the EU-Japan Centre's WCM and Lean in Europe activities, Richard is an adjunct assistant Professor at the Trinity College Dublin Business School where the series was filmed on 23 & 24 May 2016. Until his retirement in October 2018, he was also the Manager of the Competitiveness Department at Enterprise Ireland.

Links to all 8 lectures can be found on this webpage – you can either take the 'full course' or just view specific lectures.

Free copies of the slides and other material are available on request:

Free copies of the lecture material and 4 of Richard's related books ("Becoming Lean", "Becoming a Lean Service Business", "The Five Rings" and "Toyota in Everyman Language") are available for people working in an EU27 member-state, Iceland, Lichtenstein or Noway, by emailing simon@eu-japan.eu.

The 8 lectures were entitled:

The title of available lectures is given in bold type. To view a lecture, simply click on the link. To download it, right click on the link and select "Save Link As..." (or "Save Target As...").

1.   Principles, Rules, Tools of Lean
2.   The Five Rings Concept
3.   Principles of Benchmarking – Real Facts & Real Data
4.   Five Key Questions for Driving Lean Implementation
5.   Lean in a Service Environment
6.   Lean Innovation
7.   Teams and Team Building – People Make the Difference
8.   Practical Simple Tools

Other resources to help you on your lean journey

• On-going activity - our World-Class Manufacturing course in Japan - week-long training missions, providing an in-depth analysis of Japanese manufacturing methodology, consisting of lectures, workshops and visits to some of the world’s most advanced Japanese factories in order to understand the real "Gemba" (production site), talk directly with their production managers and observe the effective implementation of manufacturing methods.
• Defunct activity - our Lean Café - occasional webinar discussions of lean issues and the sharing of ideas and best practice that ran from late 2020 to early 2022.
• Defunct activity - our Lean in Europe visits - in-depth visits to European plants to discuss best practice, facilitate the sharing of ideas and networking and to inspire their participants along their companies' lean journeys and to provide valuable feedback to the host companies. Visits were organised from late 2013 to late 2019 and from late 2022 to early 2024.