The lean tools directory · 2026
Find lean tools that earn their place in your stack.
Independent guides, sourced tool profiles and free calculators for lean manufacturing, continuous improvement and lean startup teams. Skip the bloat and pick what fits how you work.
How we publish
Every profile is researched from public sources, and nobody can pay for placement. See the methodology →
- categories
- 27categories
- lean practices
- 7lean practices
- terms explained
- 78terms explained
- paid placements
- 0paid placements
Tool directory
Start from the practice you run
27 categories across 7 lean practices. Each one comes with a buying guide, the questions to ask vendors and the techniques it supports.
Lean Manufacturing Software
OEE, andon, TPM, work instructions and e-kanban for factories.
Continuous Improvement Software
Kaizen, daily management, audits and root cause tools.
Lean Six Sigma Tools
SPC, statistics, value stream mapping, CAPA and FMEA software.
Lean-Agile Software
Kanban, flow metrics, portfolio and retrospective tools.
Strategy Deployment Software
Hoshin kanri and OKR tools that cascade goals.
Lean Startup Tools
MVP, A/B testing, customer discovery and lean canvas tools.
Lean Tools
Lean methods explained, plus templates, training and books.
New every day
Recently added tools
We research and publish new tools in small daily batches. 153 tools are live so far.
Favro
Price on request
Collaborative boards, sheets and docs used by game and product studios to plan work with Kanban and Scrum at scale.
Datadog Experiments (formerly Eppo)
Price on request
Warehouse-native A/B testing and feature-flagging platform, rebranded under Datadog after its 2025 acquisition.
Sphera FMEA-Pro
Price on request
Sphera software for building and managing failure mode and effects analyses, part of its advanced risk assessment tools alongside PHA-Pro.
Qualityze
Price on request
Salesforce-built quality suite with CAPA, 8D investigations, nonconformance and audit management modules.
Celonis
Free plan + paid
Process intelligence platform that reconstructs actual process flows from system event logs to expose waste and rework.
Amplitude
Free plan + paid
Product analytics platform for funnels, retention and cohorts, with built-in experimentation and session replay.
GrowthBook
Free plan + paid
Open-source, warehouse-native experimentation and feature-flag platform with Bayesian and frequentist stats engines.
Optimizely
Price on request
Enterprise digital experience platform offering web and feature experimentation alongside CMS and personalization.
What is a lean stack?
The smallest set of tools that keeps improvement moving
Teams often end up with tools added one at a time. A lean stack is the opposite: one tool per practice, each earning its place by supporting the loop every lean team runs. See the work, measure the flow, solve the problem, standardize the fix, then improve again.
Paper and whiteboards are often the right first step. Software comes in when the manual version stops scaling.
Read the guide to building a lean stack- 01See the work
- 02Measure flow
- 03Solve problems
- 04Standardize
- 05Improve again
Stack blueprints
A starting stack for every kind of team
A common order for adding layers. Start at the top and add the next layer only when you need it.
Manufacturing plant
See the line, protect uptime and solve problems at the source.
Software and IT team
Limit WIP, measure flow and forecast without guesswork.
Early-stage startup
Test the riskiest assumption first, then build what customers pull.
CI program office
Align strategy, run the project pipeline and prove results.
Why trust our shortlists
Sourced facts. No paid placement.
Each profile says where its facts come from and when they were checked. No tool has a lean-stack score yet, and none can pay for a better position.
What every profile shows
- Sources. Every fact links to the page it came from, with the date it was checked.
- Pricing. Published prices and plans, or a plain note that pricing is on request.
- Ratings. G2 and Capterra ratings as linked, dated numbers. Never copied review text or an average.
- Fit. Strengths, limitations and who it suits, from the vendor's own documentation.
“Lean is about removing waste. A tool that nobody uses is waste with a subscription fee.”
Independent by design
No tool can pay for a place on a list or a kinder write-up. There is no paid placement.
Sourced, not scored yet
Every profile is built from public sources that are linked and dated. We have not scored any tool.
Lean, not long
We list the tools that fit a lean practice, with their sources. Shortlists are published in batches after a criteria check.
Free lean calculators
Run the numbers in seconds
OEE Calculator
Availability, performance and quality from one shift's numbers.
Open calculatorTakt Time Calculator
The pace your process must keep to meet customer demand.
Open calculatorLittle's Law Calculator
See how work in progress drives cycle time.
Open calculatorSix Sigma Calculator
Sigma level, DPMO and yield from your defect counts.
Open calculatorProcess Capability Calculator
Cp, Cpk and the share outside spec from your limits, mean and standard deviation.
Open calculatorControl Chart Calculator
Center line, control limits and out-of-control points from your own readings.
Open calculatorFlow Efficiency Calculator
The share of lead time spent on real work, step by step.
Open calculatorKanban Calculator
How many kanban cards or bins a pull loop needs.
Open calculatorGuides
Practical lean guides
October 26, 2026 · 9 min read
FMEA: failure mode and effects analysis, step by step
FMEA explained: worksheet columns, eight steps, scoring severity, occurrence and detection, RPN vs action priority, examples and a free FMEA template.
October 26, 2026 · 7 min read
Control charts: types, how to read them and examples
Control charts explained: the center line and limits, common vs special cause, which chart fits your data, the signals to look for and mistakes to avoid.
October 4, 2026 · 13 min read
Kaizen event: meaning, steps and a 3-5 day agenda
A kaizen event is a focused workshop that improves one process in 3-5 days. Learn the roles, agenda, steps and measures, with a free kaizen charter template.
Lean glossary
Lean terms in plain language
From andon to yamazumi: 78 techniques explained in a few sentences, each linked to the tools that support it.
Open the glossary- 5 Whys
- 5S
- 8D
- A/B testing
- A3
- Actionable metrics
- Andon
- Bottleneck
- Build-measure-learn
- Catchball
- Cohort analysis
- Control chart
- Cumulative flow diagram
- Customer discovery
- Cycle time
- DMAIC
- DPMO
- Fishbone diagram
- FMEA
- Gemba
- Genchi genbutsu
- Hansei
- Heijunka
- Hoshin Kanri
- Jidoka
- Jobs to be done
- Just in time
- Kaikaku
- Kaizen
- Kamishibai board
- Kanban
- Layered process audit
- Lead time
- Leader standard work
- Lean
- Lean Canvas
- Line balancing
- Little's Law
- Minimum viable product
- Monte Carlo forecasting
- Muda
- Mura
- Muri
- Nemawashi
- Obeya
- OEE
- OKR
- One-piece flow
- PDCA
- Pivot
- Poka-yoke
- Process capability
- Pull system
- SIPOC
- Six big losses
- Six Sigma
- SMED
- Smoke test
- Spaghetti diagram
- SPC
- SQDC metrics
- Standard work
- Supermarket
- Takt time
- Throughput
- Tiered meetings
- Toyota Production System
- TPM
- TWI
- Validated learning
- Value stream
- Value stream mapping
- Value-added time
- Visual management
- WIP limits
- X-matrix
- Yamazumi chart
- Yokoten
A faster way to choose
How to pick lean software without losing a quarter to demos
The usual way to buy improvement software is to collect vendor names, book demos and compare feature lists. It takes weeks, every demo looks good, and the options become hard to compare. A lean approach starts from the problem and only then looks at products.
Name the practice you need to support and the pain the manual version is causing. Then shortlist two or three tools that fit that practice, and test them with real work from one team for a couple of weeks. Decide in advance what success looks like, such as shorter huddles, fewer overdue actions or faster cycle times, and let the pilot decide.
lean-stack exists to make the shortlisting part fast. Every category page explains what matters, what to avoid and what to ask vendors. Tools are added in batches after a criteria check, and every fact links to its source, so you can check what you read.
Your two-week tool pilot
- 1Name the practice and the pain
- 2Shortlist two or three tools that fit
- 3Agree what success looks like
- 4Pilot with one team on real work
- 5Decide, standardize, then scale
FAQ
Questions, answered
What is lean software?
Do I need software to practice lean?
How does lean-stack choose and order tools?
Is lean-stack free to use?
Can I suggest a tool?
For vendors
Built a lean tool?
Submit it for review. Every tool is checked against our listing criteria and researched from public sources. Approved tools join their category in the next published batch.