NO TIME TO WASTE · ISSUE 31
The 13-Month Payback:
The ROI of a Lean Review
Most organisations are too busy to stop and fix.
It’s the most common reason we hear for delaying a Lean review. The work keeps coming. The team is stretched. There’s no time to step back. So the same processes — with the same waste — keep consuming the same hours, week after week.
But the maths tells a different story. And it’s worth a few minutes of your time.
THE BIG IDEA
A Simple ROI Calculation
We took 3 hours out with a team recently to review a process. The process runs about 325 times a year. Each cycle takes around 50 minutes of touch time. Do the maths and that’s roughly 265 hours a year — consumed by a single process in a single team.
Most Financial Controllers would happily approve an investment with a payback of less than two years. So let’s run the numbers.
Annual cost: 325 cycles × 50 minutes = 265 hours per year
If a Lean review halves the touch time → 132 hours saved every year
Investment: 8 people × 3 hours × 3 review sessions = 72 hours
Plus the same again for implementation = 144 hours total
Payback: 144 ÷ 132 = 1.09 years, or about 13 months
That’s a 13-month payback on a one-off investment of 144 hours — and the savings continue every year after that.
Year two delivers another 132 hours back.
Year three the same.
And year four.
The compounding effect is significant.
And halving the touch time is a conservative target.
In our experience, well-executed Lean reviews often deliver more — particularly when the process has never been formally mapped before.
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
The financial case is compelling on its own. But it’s only part of the picture.
A Lean review also develops the people who do the work. They learn to see waste, to ask why, to map a process and challenge each step. That capability stays with them — and they apply it to the next problem, and the one after that. You’re not just buying back hours. You’re building a team that improves continuously.
It also creates a better customer experience. Faster lead times, fewer errors, fewer handoffs, fewer frustrating delays. Every hour saved internally usually shows up externally too — in a smoother, more reliable service.
And standard work emerges as a natural by-product. The improvements don’t live in one person’s head. They become the way the work gets done — which means they survive holidays, sickness, and staff changes.
TRY THIS WEEK
Three Questions to Build the Financial Case
Estimate the investment. How many people need to be involved? How many hours of review and implementation? Be generous — overestimate to make the case bulletproof.
“Costs do not exist to be calculated. Costs exist to be reduced.”
— Taiichi Ohno · Father of the Toyota Production System
Lean process improvement makes financial sense.
It develops the work team.
It delivers a better customer experience.
The payback is faster than almost any capital investment a business will make.
So why isn’t every organisation investing time in Lean?
The honest answer is usually: we’re too busy.
Which is precisely the problem the investment would solve.
UPCOMING PROGRAMMES & EVENTS
New to Lean? Learn the principles and basic tools on our one day training experience. See how a process can be transformed with the application of Lean Thinking.
Apply Lean thinking in 12 weeks. Start with our Lean Business Simulation training held regularly in Dublin.
A full day of high-quality content, bookended by exclusive Lean Practice Days at Toyota UK’s Burnaston and Deeside plants. Learn and apply the Lean Transformation Framework (LTF) Diagnostic.
At LeanTeams, we help organisations build the financial and operational case for process improvement — and then deliver it.