Strategy becomesoperating margin.
Management consulting for operational excellence. For executive teams whose strategy needs to show up in results faster than today.
Four levers of operating margin.
Structural cost reduction across plants and functions, without quality loss.
Order-to-delivery cycle, measured across mandates.
Time-to-market and engineering efficiency in industrialisation programmes.
Effects still in place two years after engagement end.
We work where strategy meets operations.
Operational excellence is not a project you purchase. It is a capability your company builds. Our role: shorten the path and make it durable.
Industrial depth
We know the mechanics of each industry we work in because we have worked inside it: in plants, on construction sites, in ramp-up projects.
Test the assumptions
Every mandate starts from zero. What worked ten years ago is often the problem today. So we test the assumptions first, including our own.
Difficult mandates
Ramping four plants in parallel, restructuring while production runs, industrialising a new platform. These are the mandates we get called in for.
Four ways in, depending on where you stand
Which entry point fits depends on your situation. Most engagements start with the assessment.
OpEx Assessment
Eight weeks in which we go through the whole operation, from sales to supply chain. At the end there is an EBIT thesis with numbers behind it and an order in which to realise them.
Performance
We deliver the programme with your leadership team, on site in the plants. Control, metrics and accountability are set up so that they keep running after we leave.
Industrialisation
Bringing a new product or a new line into series production. We plan ramp-up, supply chain and control together, so that SOP is not the day the problems start.
Restructuring OpEx
When sites no longer carry the numbers. First secure liquidity and delivery capability, then rebuild the structure. The first effects usually show within the first quarter.
Top Consultant 2025.
Recognised for the third consecutive year by compamedia, based on an independent client survey conducted by WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management.
Lean Group delivers consistently executed transformations with measurable impact in production. Not on slides.
Three things we commit to on every mandate
Every thesis we put forward carries a number. What we commit to at the start of a mandate has to show up in the P&L at month-end. If it does not, the thesis was wrong, and we say so.
For us, recommendations are where the work starts. We stay until the way an operation decides, measures and steers has changed. That takes longer than a report, and it is the reason our effects are still there two years on.
To do that we work with your people in your plants. A programme that only runs while consultants are in the building would not count as a success for us.
One project in detail
Norway's largest hospital project moved in 14 days.
Nye SUS is the new building of Stavanger University Hospital, 430 beds. Our mandate was equipment logistics: every device and every piece of furniture from delivery to its installation point in the building.
Equipment was picked by target room and room group instead of procurement lot. Each room was supplied once, and the logistics team could be considerably smaller.
Move-in was planned for May 2025 and moved to November because of electrical works. We re-prioritised deliveries so that no equipment arrived too early. Patients moved in on 16 November 2025. Critical equipment and support functions had been relocated and were operational beforehand.
- 14 days
- 6 months
- by target room
We share further references in conversation. Many clients ask for confidentiality.
Voices from mandates
We had been describing the problem differently than it was for two years. Lean Group understood in eight weeks what was really going on. Six months later the first new launch came in early.
They delivered in 90 days what our own programme had not achieved in two years. With numbers that arrive in the P&L.
They worked with our people. Two years after the mandate the new structure carries itself.
Industries we work in
Machinery, automotive, process plants, medical devices, hospitals. Most mandates are in Germany and Norway, some worldwide. A reference list is available in the first conversation.
- Industrial equipment & machinery
- Automotive & suppliers
- Retail & logistics automation
- Building & infrastructure
- Process & EPC
- Electronics & medical devices
- Healthcare & hospitals
From the client list
Names we are allowed to mention.
Articles and case notes
Observations from mandates, case examples, occasionally an opinion.
apx.ai: from data to control
Intelligent platform for operational control. Connects source systems, steers processes with data, surfaces variances before they become overruns.
Why frigates arrive years late
Two to four years of delay across western navies. Where delivery capability can be regained.
Lean Group receives the TOP CONSULTANT 2025 seal
Lean Group has been recognised as TOP CONSULTANT 2025 for consulting quality and measurable results in the German Mittelstand.
Why 85% of programmes fail at implementation
Strategy rarely fails on the concept, almost always on the execution. Where the break happens, and how to close it.
Get in touch.
Tell us briefly what it is about. We will come back to you promptly with a first assessment, in confidence.