The LEO Lean for Business Programme helps to:
- Identify issues and potential improvement areas
- Provide support to implement
- Achieve savings and improvements in capability and capacity to deliver
Lean tools and techniques are helping companies across the globe to address competitiveness issues within their businesses, building the capability of their people to identify issues and improve their operations.
Lean for Business is designed to encourage clients to adopt Lean business principles in their organisations to increase competitiveness.
The key to becoming and remaining competitive is Lean: the relentless pursuit of value to the customer.
What is Lean?
Lean is about being effective and efficient - doing things quicker, better, cheaper…together. Lean strives to stamp out waste and to continually improve.
Lean requires that individuals, teams and the entire organisation remain continuously focused on the customer, adopting a practical approach to increasing value to the customer by the relentless elimination of every form of unnecessary waste.
Lean is a way of thinking and acting that enables people to drive the organisation forward. It increases capability and capacity, and is the catalyst for innovation.
Lean helps ensure quality, speed of delivery, dependability, flexibility, efficiency and productivity, innovation and by continuously listening to the customer allows companies to compete and win on merit.
The programme is open to all micro-enterprises with up to ten employees and to those non Enterprise Ireland/IDA clients employing between 10 -50 on a limited basis in consultation with the LEO except those involved in activities that the Local Enterprise Offices consider as ineligible (primary agricultural, fishery or aquaculture, coal and steel sectors) and those involving an unacceptable reputational risk including gambling, ‘gaming’ (as defined in the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956), adult entertainment, tobacco products and cannabis-based products which are not authorised as medicines).
In general start-up businesses do not avail of the lean programme however start-ups that are trading for a minimum of 6 months and have generated revenues in excess of €30k may be considered. Companies forming part of a holding group, franchise, linked companies etc. are only permitted to make one application. Multiple applications will not be considered.
The Lean for Micro scheme falls under De Minimis rules relating to previous state support
- De Minimis Aid is small amounts of State Aid given to an enterprise which cannot exceed €300,000 over any three fiscal years to any company irrespective of size and location. De Minimis Aid can come from any State body, agency or department.
- Please note that a false declaration to show a figure under the threshold of €300,000 could later mean that you would have to pay back the grant aid with interest.