Kevin Brady flew in from Ireland to spend a week touring lean companies with us, and we sat down to hear the story behind one of the best lean tours in Ireland.Kevin spent 15 years as a design engineer before taking a production manager role at Applied Concepts, a small Irish company that builds sandblasting equipment and a tractor PTO-driven compressor that found an unexpected market blowing out slurry lines. It took him nearly two years to get the owner on board with lean. Their starting point was a “before” video of a cluttered shop, along with a challenge to see what he could do in a year.They started with morning meetings and 3S time. The results speak for themselves. Kevin designs and builds nearly everything in-house, from the mezzanine floor to the signs, holders and parking spots for blast pots. As Kevin puts it: “The easy thing is to clean up a mess. The hard thing is to clean up a culture.”Applied Concepts runs a lean tour every second Wednesday. If you’re ever in Ireland, put it on your list.#LeanManufacturing #2SecondLean #ContinuousImprovement #3S #LeanByDoing