Most guides to lean consulting explain what lean is. This one assumes you know, and answers the harder question: how do you buy it well in Switzerland - a market where a plant manager searching in English finds job boards, one-person websites, and the local offices of global firms, but very little guidance on what a good engagement actually looks like.
The short version: buy the smallest engagement that produces a measurable result, from a person who has run operations rather than analyzed them, on a commercial model that ends when the result is delivered.
The Swiss market, briefly
Lean consulting in Switzerland splits into three tiers. Global strategy and operations firms sell operational excellence programs measured in months and seven figures. Mid-size specialist consultancies sell method expertise with teams of varying seniority. And a large, mostly invisible layer of independent senior practitioners - ex-plant managers, ex-production directors, ex-COOs - sell their own time, usually through word of mouth.
That third tier does most of the actual improvement work in Swiss industry, and it is the hardest to access. The practitioners are excellent operators and reluctant marketers. If you have found this page by searching, you have already discovered the core problem this market has: the best people are the hardest to find.
The three ways to engage
Analysis first. A 1 to 2 week operational assessment: one senior practitioner on your floor, a prioritised improvement roadmap at the end. This is the lowest-risk entry and the right default when you know something is wrong - capacity, lead time, quality - but not precisely where the leverage is.
A scoped project. When the problem is already named - changeover times, a messy workshop, an unclear value stream - a scoped engagement with a defined outcome beats a broad program. Typical formats: a 5S implementation over 8 to 12 weeks, a 3 to 5 day value stream mapping workshop, an SMED sprint, a 12-week lighthouse project on one line.
Interim or fractional capacity. When the gap is a person, not a project - a production lead has left, a turnaround needs an operator - an interim practitioner embeds for 3 to 12 months with line responsibility, not an advisory seat.
How to vet a lean consultant
Five questions separate operators from presenters:
- "What did you run?" You want line responsibility in their history - plant, value stream, department - not only projects about lines.
- "Show me a standard you left behind." Good consultants leave standard work, trained people, and a functioning review rhythm. Weak ones leave slides.
- *"What will you not do?"* Serious practitioners scope narrowly and say no. Beware anyone for whom your problem is exactly their universal method.
- "How does this engagement end?" The answer should name a measurable state, a handover, and a date - not a renewal conversation.
- "Who exactly does the work?" In larger firms, the person who sells is rarely the person who shows up. Insist on meeting the delivering practitioner before signing.
What it costs
Swiss market rates for senior lean expertise typically run CHF 1'500 to 3'500 per day for independents, and considerably more through large firms. Day rates, however, are the wrong unit: they price attendance, not outcomes. The better question is what a defined result costs - a halved changeover, a stable daily management system, an audited 5S standard. We cover real numbers, including how outcome-scoped pricing works, in what lean consulting costs in Switzerland.
When you should not hire a consultant
Skip external help if you have no internal owner for the result (improvements without an owner decay in months), if leadership will not spend time on the floor, or if the actual problem is a decision you are avoiding - a product, a site, a person. A consultant cannot make that decision for you, and the good ones will tell you so in week one.
How Lean Competence fits
Lean Competence is a Swiss marketplace, not a consulting firm: a curated network of senior lean and operational excellence practitioners (around 3% of applicants are accepted), matched to your brief with a shortlist in 24 hours and a typical brief-to-site time of seven working days. Engagements are scoped against outcome targets with a transparent platform fee - no retainers, no day-rate counters - and a first-week-fit guarantee: if the practitioner is not right, we swap at no extra cost.
FAQ
How much does lean consulting cost in Switzerland?
Independent senior practitioners typically charge CHF 1'500 to 3'500 per day at market rates; large firms charge more. Outcome-scoped engagements - priced against a defined result rather than days - are increasingly the norm for scoped projects. See our detailed rates guide.
How long does a typical lean engagement take?
An operational analysis takes 1 to 2 weeks. Scoped projects such as a 5S implementation or an SMED sprint run 3 days to 12 weeks. Interim engagements run 3 to 12 months.
Do I need a big consulting firm for a lean transformation?
Usually not. Most Swiss lean work is delivered better by one senior practitioner with line experience than by a leveraged team. Large firms make sense when you need parallel capacity across many sites at once.
What is the difference between lean consulting and operational excellence consulting?
In practice they overlap heavily. "Operational excellence" is the broader umbrella (lean, Six Sigma, TPM, daily management); "lean consulting" signals a flow-and-waste focus. Buy by the outcome you need, not by the label.