Details
1-day course
CPD Credit: 7 hours; Competence/s: 1 & 2
Course Delivery Options
Open Course: Available on scheduled dates. Contact cpdtraining@engineersireland.ie or call 01 665 1305, or check our CPD Calendar here.
Course Delivery
This training course will take place in Engineers Ireland, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. Catering will be provided. As with the traditional classroom delivery of our courses, class sizes are limited to allow opportunity for all delegates to participate.
Course Overview
Engineering organisations today face increasing pressure to deliver projects and services faster, with fewer errors and less waste, while maintaining quality and customer satisfaction. Many process improvement initiatives fail because teams focus on solutions before fully understanding how work flows through the system.
This practical one-day Lean Business Simulation course provides engineers and technical professionals with an experiential understanding of Lean principles through a structured, interactive business simulation. Participants take on different organisational roles and experience how variation, delays, batching, unclear requirements, and misalignment impact flow and performance.
Through structured reflection, prioritisation and controlled experimentation, delegates learn how to identify waste, improve flow, and test improvement ideas in a disciplined way. The course emphasises thinking before fixing, helping engineers develop the mindset and structured approach required for successful improvement initiatives.
Course Aim
The aim of this course is to provide delegates with a practical understanding of Lean thinking and structured improvement through an immersive business simulation. The course develops participants’ ability to observe processes objectively, identify waste and flow constraints, prioritise improvement opportunities, and test changes in a controlled manner. By the end of the course, delegates will understand how to apply Lean principles to engineering and operational environments in a structured and disciplined way.
Course Programme
Introduction to Lean Thinking
- What Lean is – and what it is not
- Flow, value and waste in engineering environments
Business Simulation – Round 1
- Role allocation and process execution
- Observing system performance and flow
Structured Reflection and Sensemaking
- Silent sharing and team-based review
- Identifying key concerns affecting performance
Prioritising Improvement Opportunities
- Linking improvements to key performance measures
- Using Impact / Ease to select improvement experiments
4C Learning Experiments
- Defining concerns, causes and countermeasures
- Testing improvements in subsequent simulation rounds
Business Simulation – Subsequent Rounds
- Testing selected improvements
- Measuring impact on flow, work in progress and quality
Standard Work and Workplace Alignment
- Understanding the role of standard work
- Aligning workstations to improved flow (3S principles)
Applying Learning to the Workplace
- Translating simulation insights into engineering contexts
- Next steps for Lean capability development
Learning Outcomes/Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, delegates should be able to:
- Define the core principles of Lean thinking and flow
- Identify different forms of waste in engineering and operational processes
- Explain how variation, batching and misalignment affect system performance
- Observe and analyse process flow to identify constraints and delays
- Formulate clear problem statements based on observed system behaviour
- Prioritise improvement opportunities using structured decision criteria
- Develop and test small-scale improvement experiments in a controlled way
- Describe the role of standard work in stabilising and improving processes
- Outline how Lean principles can be applied within their own engineering environment
Who Should Attend?
This course is suitable for engineers, technical professionals, project managers, operations managers, team leads and those responsible for improving performance within engineering or technical environments.
It will be of particular interest to professionals seeking to improve efficiency, reduce rework, enhance team coordination, and build structured problem-solving capability.
No prior Lean experience is required.
Trainer Profile
Steve Halpin is Founder of LeanTeams and a Lean practitioner with extensive experience delivering practical Lean training and coaching across manufacturing, service and engineering organisations in Ireland. He has supported organisations in improving flow, reducing waste, and building internal improvement capability through hands-on, experiential learning.
Steve specialises in making Lean practical and accessible, helping teams move from theory to structured, measurable improvement. He is an experienced facilitator of cross-functional workshops and improvement programmes and works with SMEs and larger organisations to embed sustainable performance improvement practices.