Supporting Bodies

Centre for Lean Projects

The Centre for Lean Projects at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is a leading research group entirely focused on adapting lean production philosophy to the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector. Relating our research to practice is a guiding principle for the Centre and a large proportion of our work is undertaken with and within companies willing to experiment with new ideas and incorporate them into their processes and production systems.

Based on nearly 20 years of research effort the Centre has a combination of funded Research Fellows and PhD researchers working collaboratively on an integrated set of research objectives. Our research is showcased at annual events at NTU and other conferences such as IGLC, LCI UK and LCi.

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Enterprise Ireland

Enterprise Ireland is the government organisation responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets. We work in partnership with Irish enterprises to help them start, grow, innovate and win export sales in global markets. In this way, we support sustainable economic growth, regional development and secure employment. You can find detailed information on Enterprise Ireland’s activities, strategy and performance in our Reports and Publications.

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Fáilte Ireland

Fáilte Ireland is the National Tourism Development Authority. Our role is to support the tourism industry and work to sustain Ireland as a high-quality and competitive tourism destination. We provide a range of practical business supports to help tourism businesses better manage and market their products and services.

We also work with other state agencies and representative bodies, at local and national levels, to implement and champion positive and practical strategies that will benefit Irish tourism and the Irish economy.

We promote Ireland as a holiday destination through our domestic marketing campaign (DiscoverIreland.ie) and manage a network of nationwide tourist information centres that provide help and advice for visitors to Ireland.

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Invest Northern Ireland

Our Operational Excellence Team helps develop Northern Ireland businesses competitive advantage by increasing their productivity and profitability. Our approach is results driven, adaptable and proven to deliver significant measurable benefits in the performance of people, processes and operations across all sectors and sizes of business.

This support and approach has helped businesses who have engaged with the team during 2017–18 deliver £11.5 million of financial impact to their bottom line. This has been delivered through improvements to throughput, capacity, quality, delivery and lead times.

The team provide practical engagement across the entire enterprise from boardroom to shop-floor to improve and transform operations to drive measurable and sustainable benefits. This approach helps businesses maximise their available resources to become more competitive, efficient and profitable, in other words to make the work Easier, Better, Faster, Cheaper.

We have a track record in helping local companies of all sizes and from all sectors address these issues. Hear now from some local companies who have recently engaged with the team.

We regularly assist businesses to introduce new concepts, tools and techniques that can effectively and efficiently improve many areas of their business. Addressing non value-adding activity within business processes can typically result in a productivity improvement of at least 25%-30%. This approach will help your business maximise the available resources so you can be more efficient and profitable.

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Lean Business Ireland

Lean Business Ireland is a national brand that represents Ireland’s continuous drive for competitiveness of indigenous and multinational enterprises located in Ireland using continuous improvement approaches. Lean Business Ireland is the community that represents the clients of Enterprise Ireland, IDA, Teagasc, BordBia & LEO’s who follow the Lean Six Sigma philosophy and proactively strive to improve their companies competitiveness on the global market.

The strategic objective of Lean Business Ireland will be driven through 5 pillars:
• Leadership
• Practice
• Education, Training & Development
• Research
• Engagement

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Lean Construction Ireland

Lean Construction Ireland is an all-island, independent, and voluntary not-for-profit association whose members passionately believe that Lean Thinking & Practices can enable and sustain enhanced effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, and profitability for the Irish Construction Sector, Clients, and Supply Chain.

 

Lean Construction Ireland leads a community of learning and practice that promotes the application of Lean Thinking & Practices throughout the Irish Architecture, Engineering, Construction (AEC) sector so as to realise value-add for all stakeholders in the value chain. It supports the free and open exchange of knowledge, information, and experiences around good practices and case studies. It also supports ongoing research into Lean practices nationally and globally, their application to AEC, and their sharing with the wider Lean Construction Ireland Community.

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Waterford Institute of Technology

The WIT Business School offers a portfolio of executive/practitioner education programmes that have been developed by the members of The Academy of Lean Enterprise Excellence in collaboration with industry.

These programmes are designed to meet identified industry needs for discrete knowledge, know-how, and skills in continuous improvement and lean enterprise/operational/process excellence in public and private organisations, and across all services and manufacturing sectors.

Given the applied nature of Lean, and given the breadth and depth of experience within our programme participants, we place a particularly strong emphasis on peer and experiential learning. This is highly-valued by our students, and it is enabled via our class-contact approach and extensive student interactions, engagement, and collaboration throughout the duration of the programmes.

In addition to examining the “Hard” elements (Lean tools and techniques, operational and business analytics, process excellence methodologies, and project management), a distinctive aspect of our programmes from those elsewhere is that our participants attain an appreciation for wider organisational contexts and cross-sectoral applications, services and manufacturing orientations, plus the critical “Soft” elements of Lean.

Our ethos and approach is aligned to the Shingo Model and Approach, as well as to the Toyota Production System and the Toyota Way. We examine and synthesise the principles, systems, culture, and behaviours integral to Lean enterprise excellence. Our students examine Lean philosophy and thinking; Lean leadership; Lean strategy and hoshin kanri; systems thinking and the learning organisation; employee engagement; change management and cultural transformation; and lean coaching and communications.

All of our programmes use an integrated learning approach that encompasses traditional lectures; case studies; in-class discussions; ICT practicals; site visits; guest speakers; live-laboratory projects; and all supported by Moodle, WIT’s virtual learning environment.

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