UK LEAN PIONEER MICHELLE LEONG BUILDS SMART APP TO APPLY KAIZEN TO EVERYDAY LIFE
A management philosophy born out of post-war scarcity in Japan is being reimagined for modern life by one of the UK’s earliest lean pioneers, as principles once confined to factory floors and construction sites move into the personal sphere.
Michelle Leong, an author and long-standing expert in lean methodology, is developing a new UK-built smart app designed to help individuals apply lean thinking to everyday decisions — from how they work and travel to how they manage health, time and wellbeing.
The project comes three years after the publication of her book Being Lean: Achieve a better quality of life at home, in health, travelling and at work, which explored how the discipline of lean — widely used to improve efficiency and reduce waste in industry — could be translated into personal life.
Now, that thinking is being embedded into a digital product. The Leanier app, currently under development, is designed to learn from user behaviour and offer tailored suggestions to improve efficiency, reduce friction and encourage more intentional living. Rather than prescribing generic productivity tips, the app adapts to individual habits and circumstances.
For Leong, the app is less about optimisation in the narrow sense and more about what she describes as “behaviour engineering”.
“It’s been a long-held dream to be able to bring the ‘lean’ methodology into someone’s personal life. I long ago realised it’s a recipe for happiness after bringing it into the construction industry in the UK. There are many views around this way of thinking. It’s not just about being less wasteful, or being healthier – it’s an holistic way to live aligned to your values,” Michelle said.
Leong, who is 55 and lives in Watford, is widely recognised within the UK construction sector for her role in pioneering lean methodology more than two decades ago. At the time, lean thinking was still largely associated with automotive manufacturing, most famously through Toyota’s production system and the Japanese concept of kaizen, meaning continuous improvement.
Lean later spread into other industries, including healthcare, with elements of the approach adopted by the NHS and public-sector organisations seeking to improve outcomes while managing constrained resources. In the UK, a specialist consultancy and training ecosystem has since developed around the methodology. Leong was among the first cohort in the country to receive formal training in lean principles.
She argues that lean thinking has often been misunderstood as a narrow cost-cutting exercise, rather than a broader framework for improving flow, decision-making and value creation.
“Being lean is not just about reducing waste – it’s far more than that. It’s about values and flow in business and in life. It’s about providing the best customer service as efficiently as possible as cost effectively as possible while keeping waste at a minimum. It’s an ever-evolving way of doing business and a way of living,” she said.
The Leanier app aims to reflect that philosophy. It is being built to evolve alongside users, offering incremental, relevant changes rather than rigid rules. According to Leong, the intention is to avoid a one-size-fits-all model and instead encourage sustainable improvements rooted in individual priorities.
Development has accelerated in recent months, with the team preparing for a beta-testing phase ahead of a planned public launch next year.
“The app is under development,” Michelle said “and we are looking for interested people to help us beta test it. We hope then that it will be ready for a full launch in the summer of 2026.”
If successful, the project would mark a further step in the consumerisation of industrial management thinking, as concepts once reserved for engineers and operations directors are repackaged for individuals seeking greater balance, efficiency and wellbeing in everyday life.
To find out more or to apply as a beta-tester visit: https://www.leanier.app/
