Why Lean fails seven times out of ten in Swiss industry

I’ve deployed Lean programmes in roughly forty Swiss companies. Precision industry, watchmaking subcontractors, general mechanics, aluminium transformation. When I come back three years later, the finding is always the same: the tools are still there. Operational standards exist. A3s are posted. 5S has held — usually. But momentum has faded.

In 70% of cases, the Lean programme didn’t survive the next strategic cycle.

The illusion of tools

Lean, in the literature, is a system. On the floor, it has become a toolbox. We deploy 5S because a customer asked for it. We do SMED because we heard about SMED. We post an A3 because it looks modern.

The result: tools without a system holding them together. A mechanism that looks like Lean but doesn’t have the managerial posture behind it.

Lean isn’t in the toolbox. It’s in the hand that holds it.

The six recurring reasons

1. Visual management stays in the meeting room

I walk into the workshop. The DMS board: up to date. I walk into the production director’s office: another board, up to date, but disconnected from the first. I sit in on the executive committee: we talk EBITDA, never flow. The cascade doesn’t exist.

2. We rarely close before opening

New programme. New project. New sprint. But we rarely close the old ones. Teams pile up layers of initiatives, lose the thread. Change fatigue doesn’t come from change itself — it comes from the absence of subtraction.

3. No Hoshin

Hoshin Kanri is a cascading strategic deployment. It forces leadership to choose three priorities, and only three. Without Hoshin, Lean happens next to strategy — not with it.

4. Leadership doesn’t practise Gemba

In the rare cases where Lean lasts, the CEO does a weekly Gemba walk. Not to check. To understand. Leaders who stop visiting the floor end up deciding without seeing.

5. We confuse training with coaching

We send 30 people to Green Belt. We tick the box. But no one coaches the Green Belts on their first project. The tools stay in the binder.

6. The Swiss culture of self-effacement

This one is more subtle. Swiss industrial culture is, by tradition, modest. We avoid putting ourselves forward. But Lean requires making things visible: problems, gaps, irritants. Many organisations can’t make this cultural step.

The way out: from tool to gesture

This is what gradually led me to formulate Denovation. A posture that doesn’t deploy a kit, doesn’t follow a recipe. That looks at what already works, prunes before adding, and gives itself the time to last.

It’s not Lean on top. It’s Lean differently.

If you’re in the “our Lean is going in circles” phase, I’d be happy to talk. No commitment. Just to map what you already have — and what deserves to be pruned.