CAREL goes for the lean thinking black belt

For almost 15 years now, CAREL has embraced lean philosophy, making it a cornerstone of its growth strategy. Indeed in 2020, the company created its own Lean Academy to train and develop its employees.

The company has in fact recognised that lean thinking, applied to all company areas and the overall strategic process, allows the development of a shared methodology and inspires improvement proposals, fostering personal engagement and growth. In 2007, when the company first trialled the lean approach starting with transactional processes (and not in production, as is typically the case), the results were immediately encouraging. Tangible improvement in proactive attitudes and the continuous engagement of people have therefore led CAREL to spread lean thinking throughout the company.

The contents of the Academy are divided into four levels, called belts, set out along a path comprising a sequence of steps. After having obtained the “white belt”, CAREL employees have for the last few weeks been able to strive for the “yellow belt”, a level that offers more tools for approaching Project Management from a lean perspective. Finally, the green and black belts will focus on more structured topics and conclude the specialist training path. The aim of the courses is to disseminate a culture of learning from mistakes, as well as constantly seeking out problems and opportunities, aspects that have already contributed to bringing about new initiatives and projects.

Based on the successes achieved and the experience acquired thus far, CAREL has established itself as a reference point for the academic worldin relation to lean philosophy. Universities, business schools and masters courses rely on CAREL to train their students: the company hosts on-site visits and offers support for individual research theses or to share experiences with other companies.

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