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​​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​Fund Your ​​​Lean Operational Excellence 

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​& Digital Transformation Roadmaps

What is Lean?

Doing more of what matters — and less of what doesn’t. It's a way of working that focuses on creating more value for customers with fewer resources by eliminating waste.

What is a Lean Consultant?

A lean consultant guides the implementation of lean principles. They help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization by focussing on reducing waste, improving flow and communication, and ultimately increasing business productivity.

Lean consultant management helps organisations engage all their people, at every level, to help the entire organization co-create processes that work better: delivering more for customers, building stronger capabilities, finding new and better ways of working, and renewing a sense of common purpose.

How Can Lean Improve Competitiveness?

Adopting Lean helps teams and organisations reach their goals in smarter, more sustainable ways. A Lean organisation continuously improves how it delivers value to customers by removing waste from every process. Instead of optimising individual departments or assets, Lean focuses on improving the flow of products and services across the whole value stream. This approach helps businesses respond to changing customer needs faster and more effectively than traditional management methods.

Lean Funding

​Enterprise Ireland provides a suite of supports — including the Lean Start & Lean Plus, Digital Discovery, Digital Transformation — designed to help organisations embed Lean principles, streamline operations, and deliver greater value to customers. More information here


IDA Ireland also champions continuous improvement through its Transform Your Operations and Lean Global Business Services (GBS) programmes. With its commitment to “green lights over red tape,” the IDA makes it easier for companies to innovate, scale, and compete globally.


Together, these initiatives reflect Ireland’s reputation as one of the best countries in the world for ease of doing business, helping organisations of all sizes unlock efficiency, agility, and sustainable growth.

Expertivity Technologies have been providers of the Lean Programmes for many years across multiple industry sectors. These programs are helping companies address competitiveness issues within their businesses by building the capabilities of their people to identify problems and improve operations.

If you are an Enterprise Ireland or  IDA Ireland client, you too may be entitled to funding. You can  find more information   below for both Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland funding offerings. Please see our EI/IDA  Case Studies  to get an understanding of the Lean Competitiveness Journey from our client’s perspective.

Enterprise Ireland IDA Ireland

Where can Lean be applied?

Lean can be applied in any organisation — large or small, public or private — to improve performance and efficiency at every level.


Originally developed for manufacturing, the Lean mindset has been adopted successfully across sectors such as financial services, healthcare, government, life sciences, engineering, and technology.


More than a set of tools, Lean is a way of thinking that helps organisations create value, eliminate waste, and continuously improve.

Transform your Operations with IDA Ireland

Thinking about enhancing your operations in Ireland? IDA Ireland have supports available to help you avail of tools and techniques that can unlock innovation in the way you do business today - giving you the springboard to stay sustainable into the future

  • Outcome-based support options available with significant assistance
  • Lean programme helps in finding creative solutions to enhance competitiveness

Lean Business Offer - Enterprise Ireland

We help Enterprise Ireland clients achieve measurable productivity gains and cost reductions through company-wide transformation in culture, agility, and execution.


Using proven Lean tools and techniques, we help map and measure processes, identify waste, and automate repetitive tasks — freeing your teams to focus on value-adding work.


Enterprise Ireland offers three Lean project levels:


Lean Start / Lean Plus / Lean Transform


Each stage builds capability and confidence in applying Lean principles to drive performance, efficiency, and sustainable improvement across the organisation.

Supports are available from:

  • Enterprise Ireland – For companies exporting, with 10+ employees. Also, multinationals using natural resources.

Local Enterprise offices    grant supports improve competitiveness build better enterprise lean business offer digital innovation digital transformation digital discovery build to innovate lean green business offer lean global business services GBS údarás na gaeltachta

More information on the grants available

Enterprise Ireland Grants 

More information on the grants available

IDA Ireland Grants 

Frequently Asked Questions

Lean can help any business by bringing transparency to the processes that deliver your products of services to your customers. Once you and your team can see the issues and challenges in the process, lean has some simple but really effective tools to minimize or eliminate those issues. The result is a process that is simpler, repeatable and therefore more effective in delivering the right product/service, at the right cost and at the right time.

Lean tools and techniques are helping companies across Ireland to address competitiveness issues within their businesses by building the capability of their people to identify problems, improve operations and create a more innovative organisation.

We have delivered many lean programs and it’s fair to say that they have always delivered a significant improvement for our clients.  You can look at our case studies at your convenience to look at the type of results companies can achieve. 

The length of time from application to approval varies, depending on the type of funding being sought i.e. there is a higher level of interaction and information exchange between EI and the IDA advisor and you, the client, for the higher funding, but it would be reasonable to expect the approval process to be completed in 3 – 8 weeks. Again the project completion time line depends on the size of lean program you are applying/approved for, the starter program is 7 days generally delivered over 2 – 3 months. The Lean Plus program is generally in the 6 -12 month time frame and the Lean Transform up to 3 years. You can read the detailed information on the funding offers on the EI/IDA websites but here’s a quick summary that you may find helpful.

The Lean Business Offer is made up of three levels of support:

1.       Lean Start :

Eligible Cost Elements

Eligible Costs

Eligible Grant

External Adviser/trainer

€6,300 based on 7 days advisory services at rate of €900/day. Actual costs based on market rates may be higher

€5,000 based on a grant of up to 80% of eligible costs

2.       LeanPlus

Eligible Cost Elements

Eligible Costs

Eligible Grant

External Lean Training/Advisory costs provided by a Service Provider on the EI directory, capped at €900 per day. Internal salary cost of up to 3 company ‘Lean project champions’, up to 50% of the total project cost, subject to a combined max. of 250 days at €200 per day.

Up to €100,000 in eligible expenditure. Actual company spend may be higher

50% of eligible costs up to a maximum of €50,000

3.       LeanTransform

Eligible Cost Elements

Eligible Costs

Eligible Grant

trainers' and trainees personnel costs, for the hours during which the trainers participate in the training;

Eligible external trainer costs are capped at €900 per day including expenses. Internal staff time (trainer or trainee) is based on actual pay rates to a cap of €350 per day.

The maximum grant rate is based on a percentage of eligible costs and depends on company size;

Small – 70%, Medium – 60%,  Large – 50%

trainers' and trainees' operating costs directly relating to the training project such as travel expenses, materials and supplies

Travel and subsistence expenses are allowed as per standard EI policy where deemed reasonable.

 

costs of expert advisory services linked to the training project for advice and guidance on training programme implementation and appraisal as well as benchmarking / diagnostics where appropriate

Costs of advisory services are capped at €900 per day including expenses, limited to  a maximum of 10% of the total eligible training project spend up to a project maximum of €200,000.

 

 

 

 

Each level of support is characterized by increasing levels of capability in implementing Lean business principles and other best practice approaches to drive company awareness, adoption and integration of Lean tools and techniques.

In general, Enterprise Ireland support Irish SME’s involved in manufacturing or International Traded Services. The IDA provide funding support to companies (potential/current) who are considering foreign direct investment in Ireland. You can check if you have the potential to be an Enterprise Ireland or IDA Client by looking at the eligibility criteria on each of their websites, or contact us and we will help you to check it out.

Like anything else, applying for funding for the 1st time may seem daunting but it is quite straight forward. The eligibility and application steps are all highlighted in the Enterprise Ireland Website under Productivity and Business Process Improvement Supports and on the IDA site under ‘How We Help’ Funding Sources and Incentives.  Expertivity have delivered many Lean Programs and are always happy to support our clients with the application process. 

Why Expertivity Technologies? 

As Master Practitioners & Lean Operations Consultants we are trusted by top organisations across multiple industry sectors with complex environments to deliver against business priorities ranging from organisational process improvements to expert project management, strategy execution services to help organisations and their people perform to maximum potential.


Simply put: We have the experience, we have the know how and we always deliver on time and on budget!

Here is some feedback in our customers own words!