Published on: 2026-07-16
Source: KAMAZ – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
KAMAZ conducted lean manufacturing training for an external company for the first time – previously, this format was available only to employees of the corporation and dealer network. The event’s partner was Liga Effektivnosti.
The program was specifically developed for real business tasks in collaboration with experts from MITTU, the corporate training center of KAMAZ. In the event held with the support of MITTU, the emphasis was not on theory but on solutions that can be taken away and implemented in companies immediately upon return.
A cross-functional team of 28 people participated in the internship: production workers, internal trainers, accountants, logisticians, and sales specialists. Lean manufacturing does not “live” in a single workshop; it only works when it covers the entire chain – from procurement and accounting to production, service, and shipment.
Participants saw how lean principles operate in the real production environment of KAMAZ: how workplaces are organized according to the 5S principles; how value streams are built and where losses are hidden; how the kaizen culture and employee involvement in improvements work; how kanban and andon are integrated into the process, with quality ensured not “at the output,” but directly in the flow.
An important part of the program was training at the Process Factory – a practical simulator, which is currently being developed by MITTU. There, participants could not only learn about the principles of lean manufacturing but also experience them in an educational simulation, see cause-and-effect relationships, and understand how these tools work in practice.
As emphasized by the MITTU specialists, the value of such an internship lies in the opportunity to demonstrate that Lean works not only in Toyota cases and not only in textbooks. At KAMAZ, it is a system that has been developing for decades in real Russian production conditions, with clear constraints and high execution discipline. For the participants, it was not a “promo tour” or a sightseeing excursion, but an immersion into an operating production system. Already on-site, the team discussed which practices could be adapted in their own company and where to start implementing changes. The team returned not with notes, but with a shared understanding, a common language, and initial solutions for implementation.
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